ABSTRACT
In this book we present an account of the changing landscape and the cul-
tural and political significance of Vientiane, Laos, from its emergence as an urban centre (dating from at least the thirteenth century) to the present.
Although we necessarily rely on a wide range of documentary sources in
this endeavour, we use the landscape itself – both physical and imagined –
as our principal register, treating it as a form of text (albeit partial and
fragmented) through which we might read key features of Lao geo-political
history, the nature of Lao urbanism, and the critical relation of this urban-
ism to constructions of Lao identity in the past and also the present.
