Book Condition: New. Bangkok 2005 258 pp., 150 x 210 mm, pbk. Weight 0.420 Kgs. Kersten, Carool; Dr. Muller's Asian Journey: Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Yunnan (1907-1909. Scarce out of print book. This work is based on one of the travel books by the Dutch scholar and diplomat Hendrik Muller, written after a lengthy sojourn in various parts of Asia. As a member of the Netherlands? commercial elite, he was able to gain access to the highest circles in the countries he visited. There are accounts of audiences with the kings of Thailand and Cambodia, as well as encounters with other royalty, meetings with colonial governors, orientalists, prominent foreign advisers and other senior officials. Apart from the main cities?Bangkok, Saigon, Phnom Penh and Hanoi?Muller also ventured into the interior. There is an extensive account of his excursion to the ruins of Angkor, which in his time had barely been explored and studied. In northern Vietnam he visited the border town of Langson, and traveled on the Tonkin-Yunnan railway, a fabulous piece of engineering, to Mengzhi. The book contains many historical digressions, based on the author?s own research in the Dutch colonial archives and readings of earlier studies of Southeast Asian history. As a former businessman he was also a keen observer of the region?s contemporaneous economical situation. This century-old book is also interesting for what it reveals of the author?s conceptions regarding other cultures and religions, and the role of imperialism.
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