My attraction to northern Thailand strengthened when I visited minority groups in the hills. Many non-Thai minorities live in northern Thailand, and they offer a
The psychologist Abraham Maslow made peak experiences his business, and he explored them in Toward a Psychology of Being. Many people today know him for
During the Axial Age, in the mid-first millennium BCE, some of humanity’s most influential teachers lived, mental horizons in the West, the Middle East, India,
Some historians of thought have called it humanity’s most influential period. The philosopher Carl Jaspers called the time between 800 BCE and 300 BCE the
Sumerians created a system of writing that was robust enough for literature more than 5,000 years ago. It was initially used to record inventories and
A recent article here began to explore ways that ideas of truth can vary in different cultures. A common theme I’ve found has been constancy.
The first kings in Thailand’s new Chakri Dynasty grounded Bangkok in Thai traditions in the late 18th and early 19th centuries by erecting monuments in
Thais needed to rebuild their world after Burmese armies traumatized them by sacking Ayutthaya, the capital of their largest kingdom, in 1767. The first king
The archaeologist Paul MacKendrick wrote a book about ancient Italy called The Mute Stones Speak. But for First Americans in California, stones aren’t mute; they