Rising from the Ashes
lar social classes. This can be a particular hindrance to understanding the ways that pre modern cultural production was embedded within complex systems of patronage that moved between enslaved and corveed labour and the upper echelons of the sakdina system. However, Peleggi's willingness to sacrifice particular details in favour of a more comprehensive narrative is what makes this book so valuable. He has a way of stimulating interest in a topic, and many chapters in the book will undoubtedly provoke robust discussions in courses on Southeast Asian history and art and architectural history in general. Indeed, this book enters a field that has benefited greatly from a spate of recent English language books on Thailand that are both theoretically innovative (in particular, Samson Lim's Siam's new detectives and Arnika Fuhrmann's Ghostly desires) situate biography within larger transregional histories (Tamara Loos' Bones around my neck) and integrate art and social historical methodologies (Angela Chiu's The Buddha in Lanna) Along with Peleggi's important earlier contributions to the field,Monastery, monument, museum takes its place alongside this growing corpus of well written and innovative scholarship.