The Angkorian World

The Angkorian World explores the history of Southeast Asia’s largest ancient state from the first to mid-second millennium CE. Chapters by leading scholars combine evidence from archaeology, texts, and the natural sciences to introduce the Angkorian state, describe its structure, and explain its persistence over more than six centuries.

Comprehensive and accessible, this book will be an indispensable resource for anyone studying premodern Asia. The volume’s first of six sections provides historical and environmental contexts and discusses data sources and the nature of knowledge production. The next three sections examine the anthropogenic landscapes of Angkor (agrarian, urban, and hydraulic), the state institutions that shaped the Angkorian state, and the economic foundations on which Angkor operated. Part V explores Angkorian ideologies and realities, from religion and nation to identity. The volume’s last part reviews political and aesthetic Angkorian legacies in an effort to explain why the idea of Angkor remains central to its Cambodian descendants. Maps, graphics, and photographs guide readers through the content of each chapter. Chapters in this volume synthesise more than a century of work at Angkor and in the regions it influenced.

The Angkorian World will satisfy students, researchers, academics, and the knowledgeable layperson who seeks to understand how this great Angkorian Empire arose and functioned in the premodern world.

The Prologue and Chapters 2, 10, 15, 23, 30 and 32 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Mitch Hendrickson is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, USA. He worked as an archaeologist in northwest Mexico, the Canadian Plains, and High Arctic before shifting his focus to Cambodia in 2001. His initial research on the development and role of the Angkorian road system enabled him to develop two ongoing projects in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts on the technological transformation that enabled expansions of the Khmer Empire and understanding religious transition at the site of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay.

Miriam T. Stark is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA. Her 40-year career includes fieldwork in North America, the Near East, and Southeast Asia; she launched her first field project in Cambodia in 1996. Her Cambodian research, through multiple projects in collaboration with Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, focuses on protohistoric to Angkorian period urbanism, early state formation, and political economy.

Damian Evans is Senior Research Fellow at the École française d’Extrême-Orient in Paris and an Honorary Associate in the Department of History, School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry at the University of Sydney. He is involved in a diverse array of projects across Southeast Asia encompassing archaeology, heritage, and the earth sciences, and he has initiated and overseen archaeological projects in Cambodia since the late 1990s. His work focuses on using earth observation technologies such as satellite imagery, radar, and lidar to understand the relationship between humans and their environments from the deep past to the present day.