Southeast Asia: History and Culture, Facts and Background

This book combo focuses on the Southeast Asian region, the Cambodian and Thai areas in particular. Learn more about the history of those countries. The topics addressed will be these:

Angkor Wat– The temple was built as the state temple for the Khmer Empire at the demand of Suryavarman II in the early 12th century in Yaodharapura (, contemporary Angkor), the Khmer Empire's capital. It was constructed in the early 12th century to honor the Hindu god Vishnu, but by the end of the century, it had been changed to a Buddhist temple.

Angkor Wat is a fascinating structure, dating back hundreds of years, and it’s impressive how much of it has remained intact.

The Khmer Empire– Historians describe Cambodia as the Khmer State or the Angkorian Empire (Khmer:) from the 9th century to the 15th century, when it was a Hindu/Buddhist empire in Southeast Asia. The empire, which developed from the old societies of Funan and Chenla, governed and/or "vassalized" the majority of mainland Southeast Asia and parts of Southern China, covering from the suggestion of the Indochinese Peninsula northward to modern-day Yunnan province in China, and from Vietnam westward to Myanmar. The Khmer Empire was greater at its peak than the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire) that existed at the exact same period.

The Siamese– Siam was just a much different name for what's now referred to as Thailand. The Siamese are the people who live there, though they're never ever called as such any longer.

Thailand is a fascinating country, with its own culinary arts, culture, history, royalty, infrastructure, and influence on the world. To learn more about these “Thai” people before they were called Thai, when they were Siamese, is to learn about those people’s roots.