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The Story of Angkor Kindle Edition

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 7 ratings

The lost civilization of Angkor left no written records, and only its ancient stones can tell the tale. The Story of Angkor exposes the history of this once mighty Southeast Asian empire through the secrets hidden inside the temples and buildings located around the city of Siem Reap. It guides the reader into Angkor’s most spectacular monuments and the kings who commissioned them.

The Classical Angkor period, from its founding in 802 AD by Jayavarman II, to its mysterious demise, produced hundreds of temples, reservoirs, and other monuments. But why were they built? What did they represent? The Story of Angkor answers these questions. Through an exploration of ancient culture, religion, trade, warfare, ecology, and politics, it gives meaning to the mysterious faces of the Bayon and decodes the beautiful but violent bas-reliefs of Angkor Wat. It also presents Cambodia’s early history and Angkor Wat’s “discovery” by nineteenth-century explorers.
Written in a concise, accessible style, with photos and maps, The Story of Angkor presents an in-depth analysis of the ancient Angkor civilization that will appeal to both readers and travelers.

About the Author

Jame DiBiasio is founding editor of AsianInvestor magazine and website. He is an American and long-time resident of Hong Kong.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"While it can be read as a standalone history, any visit to Angkor would be greatly enhanced by having this slim and concise volume to hand." - The Asian Review of Books, August 7, 2014

About the Author

Jame DiBiasio is the founding editor of AsianInvestor magazine and website.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00IKNFT96
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Silkworm Books (July 15, 2013)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 15, 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3750 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 167 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 7 ratings

About the author

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Jame DiBiasio
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Jame DiBiasio writes finance, history and business books from his perch in Hong Kong. He is a financial journalist, editor and media founder, specializing in the intersection of technology, finance and innovation.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
7 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2016
    Bought this for a family member who was planning a trip to Angkor - he said this book was so helpful! He skimmed through before they went, and then read each section while there as it applied to their tour schedule. He said he got so much more out of his trip because of "The Story of Angkor."
  • Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2013
    Intended as an approachable, entry-level history of ancient Angkor for tourists, Story of Angkor presents the revolution in scholarly understanding of ancient Cambodia that's taken place over the last decade or so. No visitor to Angkor, and no one interested in Cambodia, can afford not to read it.

    The paradigmatic understanding of the subject was laid out by the great George Coedès in the first half of the 20th century:

    "Coedès ... argued that Southeast Asia represented a `Farther India', a land of gold that was conquered and colonized by waves of Indians from around 200 BC through 400 AD. His work also gave us the basic timeline of the kings and therefore the monuments. He helped lay out a narrative of a pre-Angkor Cambodia trapped in a dark ages. He and other scholars documented wars between the Khmers and the Chams that defined the rise of Angkor's first Buddhist king. The shadow of Coedès stretches so long because the Khmer Rouge, Vietnamese invasion and destructive poverty have kept international scholarship at bay. Only in the 1990s did meaningful work on Angkor resume."

    Coedès research remains relevant, but "his conclusions seem fanciful. ... Most scholars today argue against the idea of Indian colonizers ... others suggest that Indian ideas came from Malays and other travellers visiting India and Sri Lanka, rather than from Indians actually settling in Southeast Asia."

    On Angkor, Coedès "believed an early Khmer-speaking civilization (Funan) grew up around southern Vietnam, based on a port called Oc Eo and a nearby city called Angkor Borei. This fell into disunion and chaos, and was assaulted by enemy invaders, perhaps from Champa or Java." This is what we read in every guide book and history of Cambodia, but there's no evidence to back it up. "The evidence is going the other way, actually: the epicentre of Funan may have not even been where Coedès believed, [but] further west in the Menam Basin." I don't think my Cambodian friends are going to like that idea - though perhaps they'll see it as yet further evidence that the wicked Thais are a bunch of brigands.

    My friends will like this: "This year, scholars announced the discovery of a city, Mahendraparvata, on Mount Kulen, some 50 kilometers distant from Angkor... a vast urban civilization on par with the biggest pre-industrial societies of China or Europe."

    The final surprise for me is this:

    "Even the dating of the Bayon and Angkor Wat are now under fire. The chronicle of Zhou Daguan, a Chinese visitor in the 13th century, makes so little account of Angkor Wat that some scholars question whether it was even built until after Zhou's visit - which would completely upend our understanding of it. So the story of Angkor turns out to be far more fluid than the stone remains suggest, and the history of pre-modern Southeast Asia is still up for grabs."
    4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • The Doctor
    5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 16, 2016
    Excellent informative read
    Tremendous piece of work good glimpses of historical characters
    A must read before visiting Angkor
    Truly useful

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