By examining the references to the Ayudhyan polity contained in the Ming imperial annals, and comparing them with the local chronicular accounts of that polity, this article suggests a greater consonance between what is contained in the Ming texts and the van Vliet version of the chronicles (based on the Sangitiyavan). Other suggestions about the early history of Ayudhya are made on the basis of the Chinese texts. A precis of the Chinese references is included as an appendix to the article.

An account based on fieldwork, "The Road to Bd Ra" portrays the settlement of a river valley in Vietnam's northern uplands, and also explores the relationship between settlers and other ethnic groups. A local history approach and emphasis on travel as research perspective are used to examine geographical and administrative processes common to many parts of Vietnam's upland frontier.

This article examines the history and functions of the Brunei State Council (1907—1959). Although a "rubber stamp" to the British Resident's decisions until 1950, thereafter the Council, dominated by the nominees of a new and strong Sultan, Omar Ali Saifuddin III, became an Achilles heel to the British officialdom that yielded maximum power to the traditional elements under the Constitution promulgated in 1959.

This article examines the establishment by the Thai court in the late nineteenth century of what was to become the "national library", an institution modelled on colonial scholarly societies being set up at the time. It examines its role in the construction of a corpus of a knowledge about the "Thai nation".

Growing inter-regional trade has created closer ties between a remote.Thai market town near the Burma-Thailand border and the central region of Thailand. With more outside traders — armed with new kinds of goods — coming to trade, the central region, Bangkok in particular, is no longer a strange, faraway land, and Central Thai, which is used in trade, has become a familiar language in the town. Such new economic activities are thus a crucial factor in national integration, and help strengthen the ideology of the modern Thai nation.