Analysis/ response the book Siam Mapped by (Thongchai Winichakul) , book report - Essay Example

and coming up with different hypothesis of the struggles and encounters through which the later discourse dislodges the former, Winichakul generates several remarkably original insights and theories on the dynamics of Thai/ Siamese history of the 19th and 20th century. In the book, Winichakul presents a very exciting and lush approach to the modern nationhood and nationalism. Winichakul takes us far beyond nationalist assumption of the history of a nation. What makes Thongchai’s approach stand out is that it is a work theory that illuminates history.

The book greatly stimulates theories such as the contribution of mapping to the nationalist imagination of a country. In this monograph, historian Thongchai Winichakul’s work clearly comes out as a scholarly genius. Thongchai investigates ways in which the identity of the Thai nation evolves in union with its geographical identity. His theories outline how aspects such as nationality and nationhood manifest themselves in the form of mappings. Winichakul defines a nation as a geographical boundary a kind of a geo-body.

Over the last few decades of the 20th century, the world has slowly been turning into a global community. Multinational corporations, not governments increasingly dominate the global economic seen. Monetary system, capital and the flow of information have no boundary. The collapse of socialist community has unleashed the power of nationalism, a different kind of nationalism and not the initial socialist ethnic nationalism. One that has proved to be more than what Lenin or Marx would have imagined.

As nationhood fades off, a new sense of nationality is emerging. It is such thoughts that inspire Thongchai’s work in the book. Nationhood has a powerful grip that holds a community together whose members may never know each other, so powerful is it that lives can be sacrificed for it (Thongchai 10). Even with the above prelude, the destructive effects of nationalism have been enormous. Today, we are