Buddhism

Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Cambodia, Erik W. Davis radically reorients approaches toward the nature of Southeast Asian Buddhism's interactions with local religious practice and, by extension, reorients our understanding of Buddhism itself.

The Buddhist monasteries of Southeast Asia appear to cast an irresistible spell over visitors. Buddhist shrines--including Wat Pho in Bangkok, the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, and the Silver Pagoda in Phnom Penh--rank among the absolutely top tourist attractions in their respective countries.

This ambitious cross-disciplinary study of Buddhist modernism in colonial Cambodia breaks new ground in understanding the history and development of religion and colonialism in Southeast Asia. In How to Behave, Anne Hansen argues for the importance of Theravada Buddhist ethics for imagining and articulating what it means to be modern in early-twentieth-century Cambodia.

Documents the remnants of the rich Buddhist cultural heritage of Cambodia after centuries of wars and destruction.