Forest Monks and the Nation-State an Anthropological and Historical Study in Northeastern Thailand [Paperback]

J. L. Taylor (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 377 pages
• Publisher: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (June 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9813016493
• ISBN-13: 978-9813016491
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,335,450 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A paragon of research design, execution, and presentation, December 10, 2002

By 

Henri Edward Dongieux - See all my reviews

This review is from: Forest Monks and the Nation-State an Anthropological and Historical Study in Northeastern Thailand (Paperback)

I've heard that Jim Taylor is one of the nicest guys in the small circle of veteran Western scholars of Thai Buddhism. Along with Peter Jackson, Donald Swearer, Louis Gabaude, Santikaro Bhikkhu, and Stanley Tambiah, Taylor has made a vocation of Thai Studies. Forest Monks and the Nation-State is Taylor's great work, and it is no understatement to say that it has few peers in rigor or style.

Taylor traces the complex interplay between the state and the sangha in the Lao-influenced region of Northeastern Thailand during what may be loosely called the "modernization period" - that is, the period in which the state was using the sangha as an instrument of national consolidation. The story pulsates and oscillates between discussions of reform in the Thai metropole and intimate descriptions of the lives of wandering forest ascetics, whose charisma was co-opted by the state as a part of it's self-conscious formation. Taylor discusses the charisma and routinization processes around well-known Northeastern monks, portraying in vivid detail the ways in which communities, landscapes, and the teaching of the dhamma was changed over time alongside transformations to the Thai countryside and local relationships with Bangkok.

Rather than relying exclusively on the broad strokes of theory and a few scattered historical references and interviews, Taylor has painstakingly gathered mountains of material in order to provide one of the most comprehensive, balanced, and multifaceted social-scientific studies I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Taylor's understanding of the culture, language, and social context of his work is profound; I found him to be a major influence on my own thought as I did fieldwork in another part of Thailand.

As an ethnographic writer, Taylor has few peers. His learned, erudite style and rich vocabulary are academic models for writers in any discipline; yet his sympathy for his informants and deep understanding of the particulars of their inner, spiritual world is as intact as it is with any other writer. Taylor has achieved the extremely difficult task of balancing a systems perspective, on cultural change over a large geographic region and a substantial chunk of time, and a perspective that does not do symbolic violence to the dhamma of his monk-informants, by reducing it to something to be merely classified and catalogued as irrational, emic "remainder."

It was Taylor, along with Michael Taussig, who convinced me to quit anthropology. If work like this is possible, then I could aspire to no more than a series of footnotes to their towering achievements. As a book to inspire awe in scientists of all stripes, though, I can think of no finer example than this book.