The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXIV, Part 1-2, 1976 - Khamkoo

436 REVIEWS
this waterway was proven feasible, the necessity of proceeding against
the wishes of the Vietnamese rulers made this effort as hazardous as the
Mekong Expedition itself. One hundred years later, we find buccaneering,
such '~evidenced by Dupuis in forcing his way up the Red River and by
Garni1f in temporarily conquering the Hanoi citadel, resulting in his
death in 1873, as extremely foolhardy. Dupuis and Garnier were good
men in the context of mid-to-late Nineteenth Century Europe, but their
effort was extraordinanly misapplied in Southeast Asia.
Dr. Osborne concludes with an Epilogue recounting his impressions,
from his own visits, of famous Mekong landmarks, physical and cultural,
visited or missed by the explorers.
He rightly notes that "much of the
great river over which they traveled remains unchanged ... There have
been physical alterations ... , but these are dwarfed by the political
transformation" (p. 222). While the volume was completed prior to
the even greater transformations of the Spring of 1975, the remark serves
as a prescient observation concerning current conditions.
The book is symbolic of Western involvement in Southeast Asia;
it is an effective general summary of the last hundred years. It highlights
the enthusiasms of many people who rushed to fill a frontier which did
not exist for them; who visualized possibilities in contexts they were
unable to comprehend. There is no doubt that the record of the Expedition
is exciting material, but it is time to begin a new era by writing
in ways that are attuned to the potentials of the Mekong River and the
desires of its people. Dr. Osborne refers to two folio volumes written
by Garnier as the Expedition's report. There is also an atlas and
compilation of beautiful, larger pictures, some in color. What more
details can be gathered from these and the reports of other explorers,
including their letters and journals, and other sources which could shed
light on the demography, nutrition, agriculture, commerce, religion, and
ideals of these people? Perhaps a new age can open with a reassessment
of these early explorations not in terms of Western problems, but in
terms of past and present conditions of the people and resources of tbe
region.
H. Leedom Lefferts, Jr.
Research Institute for the
Study of Man,
New Yorlt