Van Wuysthoff and the Lan Xang Kingdom. A Dutch merchant’s visit to Laos in 1641

24 cm. xiii, 264 pp. with 75 b/w and colour illustrations. Illustratted boards. Top corners very slightly turned, else very good. * ” In 1641 the King of Laos had an audience with a Dutch merchant in the That Luang temple. What went on? What was the context? What was the impact of this meeting? These questions and many others will be answered based on the journal the VOC merchant Van Wuysthoff wrote during his travels up and down the Mekong in 1641 and 1642. He was sent by the VOC (Dutch East India Company) to investigate trading possibilities with the landlocked Lao Kingdom. * Experts on Van Wuysthoff’s journal, on the Lan Xang Kingdom, the Dutch East India Company as well as on the Japanese policy towards strangers and the seventeenth century trade in the East have been brought together to shine their light on these and related issues. * Among the contributors are professor in linguistics Jean-Claude Lejosne, the foremost expert on Van Wuysthoff, who describes how the Dutch and the Lao perceived each other during this intercultural encounter. Lawyer Mayoury Ngaosrivathana, one of the leading Lao authors on Lao history deals with other early European accounts on Laos. And Martin Stuart-Fox, the former history professor and leading scholar on Lao history writes about the Lan Xang Kingdom during the reign of King Suriyavongsa, the king Van Wuysthoff had the honour to meet with” (back cover).