21 20 T here are so many myths in Southeast Asian historiography that should be unraveled. Many are trivial and quite enjoyable for local people and historians alike. Others have serious effects on people’s lives as they deal with development, democratisation, progress, nation-making, and globalisation, even though historians are aware of the myths and try to debunk them. Many historiographical myths become limits or ceilings to scholarly endeavours because historians themselves believe the myths, taking them as truthful knowledge, thus blocking their imaginations and thinking. This article deals with the last kind of historiographical myth. Richard O’Connor has raised questions about several premises that historians of Southeast Asia have taken as the distinctive features of the region, namely manpower-not-land, centre-not-boundaries, and power- not-politics (O’Connor 2003: 74-80). In recent years, the nation as a historical subject has been scrutinised and challenged as never before. Not so long ago, a history of Southeast Asia was framed in terms of the post-independent nations and it would not be questioned. 2 But such a nation frame has lost its luster, not only because it is anachronistic and misleading for the entire history except the past hundred years or so, but also because so much has been lost or marginalised by national history. 3 Grabowsky, for example, shows how much history of the whole border areas between four modern nations (Burma, Thailand, Laos, and China) has been neglected by the nation frame of history for so long (Grabowsky 1999a and 1999b). The proliferation of studies of borders and border-crossing in Southeast Asia alone is an evidence of how a national history has swept many things under its rug. 4 Meanwhile the notion of an autonomous history has moved away from a national centre as opposed to the Euro-centric history, as Smail (1961) originally put forward, to the autonomous ports and regional centres as opposed to the national centres (Sunait and Baker 2002). In fact an overhaul of how to understand a state in the non-Western world including Southeast Asia is a current agenda among many historians and anthropologists. 5 Although it is not easy to get beyond the nation frame of history, questions are always raised and alternatives are coming along. 6 For Thai history, scholars know that telling the truth can be a risky business. For various reasons, as Terwiel puts it politely, a historian needs a ‘subtle craft’ to write a history of Siam (Terwiel 2011: 317- 322). He goes on saying that, ‘the way the Thai past is presented in most accounts is distorted or wrong’, and that, ‘this distortion has been part of a complex deliberate process’ (ibid.: 294). The foundation of the 1 Siam’s Colonial Conditions and the Birth of Thai History 1 Thongchai Winichakul ––––––––––––––––– 1 The original draft of this article was presented at the conference, ‘Unraveling the Myths of Southeast Asian Historiography’, (24-26 November 2006) in honour of Professor Barend Jan Terwiel, a distinguished historian of Thailand. Apart from a long list of publications, Terwiel has been a pioneer in several new inquiries, such as his dedication to the studies of the Ahom in Assam before any other scholars. He has an unusual approach to the past that often makes his story or narrative unique and his subjects distinctive, as we can see in the book, Through Traveler’s Eyes (1989). Above all, he likes to challenge the conventional views, as we can ind throughout another book of his, Thailand’s Political History (2010). The topic of this article is particularly chosen to relect Terwiel’s contributions to Thai history. 2 For example, the classic texts, A History of South East Asia, by D. G. E. Hall, several editions between 1957-1970; and In Search of Southeast Asia, by David Steinberg et al., several editions between 1971-1987. 3 See Thongchai 2003: 3-29. Efforts to get beyond the national history are plenty including those in recent textbooks of Southeast Asian history such as Owen et al., eds. 2004; Tarling 2001 (reprint 2004); Lockard 2008. 4 See Horstmann and Wadley, eds. 2006; J. Sturgeon (2006); and A. Walker (1999), for Thailand’s northern frontiers. 5 See Hansen and Stepputat 2001. For Southeast Asian history, see Wolters 1999; Day 2002. 6 One of the problems of trying to go beyond the national historiography is that it remains dominant in most Southeast Asian societies, see Ahmad and Tan, eds. 2003. Figure 1: Portrait of H.R.H. Prince Damrong Rajanubhab taken during his irst visit it Russia. Courtesy of Paisarn Piammattawat. A-W chpt1_pp20-43.indd 20-21 3/22/11 3:43 PM