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summary
Chiang Mai (literally, “new city”) suffered badly in the 1997 Asian financial crisis as the Northern Thai real estate bubble collapsed along with the Thai baht, crushing dreams of a renaissance of Northern prosperity. Years later, the ruins of the excesses of the 1990s still stain the skyline. Hopes for rebirth and fears of decline have their roots in Thai conceptions of progress, which draw from Buddhist and animist ideas of power and sacrality. Cities, Johnson argues, were centers where the charismatic power of kings and animist spirits were grounded; these entities assured progress by imbuing the space with sacred power that would avert disaster. Andrew Alan Johnson traces such magico-religious conceptions of potency and space from historical records through present-day popular religious practice and draws parallels between these and secular attempts at urban revitalization. For many Chiang Mai residents, new developments harbor the seeds of the crash, which manifest themselves in anxious stories of ghosts and criminals who conceal themselves behind the city’s progressive veneer. In Ghosts of the New City, Johnson shows how the trauma of the crash, brought back vividly by the political crisis of 2006, haunts efforts to remake the city.

Table of Contents

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  1. Cover
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  1. Title Page, Copyright, Dedication
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  1. Contents
  2. pp. vii-viii
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  1. Acknowledgments
  2. pp. ix-x
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  1. Note on Transcription
  2. pp. xi-xii
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  1. Introduction The Broken Building
  2. pp. 1-6
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  1. 1. Progress and Its Ruins
  2. pp. 7-31
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  1. 2. Foundations
  2. pp. 32-70
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  1. 3. Mediums
  2. pp. 71-93
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  1. 4. Lanna Style
  2. pp. 94-128
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  1. 5. Rebuilding Lanna
  2. pp. 129-152
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  1. Conclusion: The City Doesn’t Have a Future
  2. pp. 153-156
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  1. Notes
  2. pp. 157-168
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  1. Glossary
  2. pp. 169-172
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  1. References
  2. pp. 173-184
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  1. Index
  2. pp. 185-190
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  1. About the Author
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  1. Other Volumes in the Series
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  1. Back Cover
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