492 american ethnologist appealing to a strictly anthropological audi- ence—most authors do not engage new ways of thinking about current theoretical issues in anthropology or related disciplines. Instead, several contributors demonstrate how pre- vious developments in, for example, the eth- nography oi communication, performance studies, and semaseology (see Williams and Farnell in this collection, and especially their references) have helped dance scholars do bet- ter ethnography. On a more minor note, the collection might have been better served by including fewer articles that go into greater depth. Most submissions are roughly seven pages; perhaps because of this brevity the vol- ume lacks sufficient logical or smooth transi- tions across several sections. A few authors seemed to race abruptly to summary remarks. Overall, Dance in the Field is worthy oi inclu- sion on an expressive culture course syllabus, and certain articles can be culled for their con- tributions to considerations oi fieldwork and fieldwork practices. Genders and Sexualities in Modern Thailand. Peter A. Jackson and Nerida M. Cook, eds. Bangkok: Silkworm Books, 1999. v + 289 pp., tables. TOM BOELLSTORFF University of California, Irvine In the last 15 years, a spate of edited volumes have examined gender and sexuality in South- east Asia. As a complement to the refreshing comparative perspective offered by these works, more recently a number of volumes have been published on a single Southeast Asian nation. Genders and Sexualities in Modern Thailand illustrates the best this newer genre has to offer. Editors Peter Jackson and Nerida Cook have assembled 15 essays by a wide spectrum of pri- marily Western scholars. Modern Thailand is used in the broad sense oi the term, from the late 19th century to the present. One oi the most exciting dimensions of the collection is its disciplinary breadth. By sacrificing compara- tive scope and focusing on a single nation, the editors are able to bring together in a single vol- ume anthropologists, community scholars, public health researchers, historians, literary scholars, and linguists, among others. No text on Southeast Asia as a whole could hope to en- compass such a wide range of methodological and theoretical approaches. The benefit oi this interdisciplinary ap- proach is apparent on every page as major themes are addressed over and over again from different perspectives. For instance, Thamora Fishel and Scot Barmi write about early-20th- century linkages between gender and nation- alism, which resonates productively with arti- cles by Craig Reynolds, Nicola Tannenbaum, and Andrea Whittaker on contemporary inter- sections oi gender and nationalism. Rachel Harrison's analysis oi female Thai authors' characterizations oi prostitution from the 1930s onward speaks eloquently to discus- sions oi contemporary ideologies oi gender and sex work by Chris Lyttleton, Chanpen Saengtienchai et al., John Knodel et al., Ryan Bishop and Lillian Robinson, Prudence Borth- wick, and Nicola Tannenbaum. Even Vora- vudhi Chirasonbutti and Anthony Diller's analysis oi Thai gendered language ideology (including the use oi Chinese lexemes) finds parallels in Jiemin Bao's discussion of Chinese Thai identity and Peter Jackson's nuanced ex- ploration of the myth that Thai land represents a "gay paradise" (p. 226). The authors' focus on heterosexual relations and ideologies of marriage, as well as the inter- sections between gender, nationalism, capital- ism, and sex work, represents an important contribution to Southeast Asian studies in gen- eral and Thai studies in particular. The inclu- sion oi several academically rigorous articles wholly or partially concerned with HIV and AIDS in Thailand is also useful. The volume is bracketed very effectively with an introductory essay by the editors and Penny Van Esterik's fi- nal essay setting out a new research agenda for Thai gender studies that focuses on the ques- tion of embodiment. In both the introductory essay and through- out the volume the contributors hammer away at two fundamental myths that, in their shared view, stymie effective analysis oi gender and sexuality in Thailand. The first is the myth that Thailand is culturally homogenous, with a sin- gle language (Thai) and a single religion (Bud- dhism). Through this myth nation, language, religion, and ethnicity are rendered isomor- phic; differences within Thailand and struggles linked to those differences disappear from analyses. The second myth is that Thailand is unique in Southeast Asia because it was never colonized. This myth erases Thailand's quasi- colonial 19th- and 20th-century relationships (involving, among other phenomena, actual