Siam: The Land of the White Elephant as It Was and Is

Bacon, George B. (George Blagden), 1836-1876Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.9
Word count
458K words
Chapters
46

Tags

English Originals Historical Geography Human GeographyTravel GuideSoutheast AsiaExotic CultureSocial ObservationFolk Customs

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Siam : The Land of the White Elephant as It Was and Is by George B. BaconAuthor: Bacon, George B. (George Blagden), 1836-1876,Language: English, Class: DS: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Asia, Release Date: Nov 25, 2011

Editor's review

This is a nineteenth-century Western traveler's account of Siam. The title's "Land of the White Elephant" was a conventional Western imagining of Siam at the time and also signals the book's limited perspective and value as a historical source. Following firsthand observations, the author describes court etiquette, cityscapes, river life, religious beliefs, and daily customs, with the immediacy of travel writing, inevitably mixed with period prejudice and an outsider's exoticizing gaze. For today's readers, its significance lies not in providing accurate knowledge about Thailand but in showing how the West viewed Southeast Asia at a particular historical moment; read alongside other sources to identify observation, misreading, and rhetoric. Maintain a double awareness: appreciate the concreteness and vividness of the narrative while remaining wary of its hasty judgments. Suitable for readers interested in Southeast Asian history, travel writing, and cross-cultural perception as a source for close reading.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents and preface first to understand the author's itinerary and stance, then proceed to the main text.
  2. Mark judgmental words and phrases as you read, distinguishing firsthand records from outsider evaluations.
  3. Read alongside a modern history of Thailand to check descriptions of institutions and customs.
  4. Read by theme—court, religion, daily livelihood—rather than straight through.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46

FAQ

Can this book serve as an introductory read on Thailand? Not on its own. It presents nineteenth-century Siam through Western observers' eyes; many institutions and customs have changed, and judgments carry period prejudice. If used as an introduction, pair it with a modern general history and treat it as comparative material, not factual authority.
How reliable are the accounts in the book? The book mixes firsthand observation with hearsay and outsider preconceptions; reliability is uneven. Distinguish specific scene descriptions, which often have historical value, from general judgments, which require caution and cross-checking against other sources.
Why does the title emphasize the white elephant? The white elephant was a symbol of prestige in Siamese tradition and a common Western image of Siam at the time. The title uses this image to signal exotic color, reflecting Western readers' expectations and publishing taste rather than a complete picture of local society; note this rhetorical layer.
What should readers note when reading the English original? There are many proper names and old spellings; place names and official titles differ from today's. Grasp the itinerary by reading chapters first; do not look up every proper name—use modern maps and name references to aid understanding, focusing on narrative structure and observational perspective.

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About the author

Bacon, George B. (George Blagden), 1836-1876 Author · American · 1836–1876

George B. Bacon (1836–1876) was an American travel writer. In the 1870s he traveled through Siam and turned his observations into a book, his representative work Siam: The Land of the White Elephant as It Was and Is. Taking the familiar image of the "Land of the White Elephant" as its title, the book describes the country's natural scenery, social conditions, and local customs, and juxtaposes its past with its present, reflecting the nineteenth-century American travel-writing style that emphasized firsthand observation and narrative of what was seen and heard. Public information about Bacon's life is limited, and the library currently holds only one of his works. His writing offers a useful travel text for later readers seeking to understand nineteenth-century Siamese society and Western perceptions of Southeast Asia.