Bang Chan: Social History of a Rural Community in Thailand

Bang Chan traces the changing cultural characteristics of a small Siamese village during the century and a quarter from its founding as a wilderness settlement outside Bangkok to its absorption into the urban spread of the Thai capital. Rich in ethnographic detail, the book sums up the major findings of a pioneering interdisciplinary research project that began in 1948. Changes in Bang Chan's social organization, technology, economy, governance, education, and religion are portrayed in the context of local and national developments.

The late Lauriston Sharp (1907–1993) was Goldwin Smith Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies at Cornell University. He was the author of Steel Axes for Stone-Age Australians, People Without Politics, and Cultural Continuities and Discontinuities in Southeast Asia and coauthor of Siamese Rice Village. The late Lucien M. Hanks (1910–1988) was Professor of Psychology and Anthropology at Bennington College. He was coauthor of Rice and Man: Agricultural Ecology in Southeast Asia and Tribes of the North Thailand Frontier.