A History of Laos

Martin Stuart-Fox is a historian of Southeast Asia, and this Cambridge University Press book is his standard general history of Laos, covering the country's political and religious history including the place of Buddhism within it. Its strength is that it is a broad, well-regarded scholarly synthesis widely used as the standard English-language reference for Lao history. Its limit is exactly that breadth, as a general national history it treats religious institutions and events as part of a wider political narrative rather than in specialist depth, so a claim needing detailed analysis of a specific Lao Buddhist institution or practice is better served by a source focused on that subject specifically.