The first full history of a great commercial and political center that rose in Asia over almost five centuries.

This unusual and intriguing study of nationhood explores the 19th-century confrontation of ideas that transformed the kingdom of Siam into the modern conception of a nation. Siam Mapped challenges much that has been written on Thai history because it demonstrates convincingly that the physical and political definition of Thailand on which other works are based is anachronistic.

Presents new research and discoveries to reconstruct the cultures, religious persuasions and artistic traditions in pre-modern Thailand and its neighboring regions.