From buffer state to crossroads state / Randi Jerndal & Jonathan Rigg -- Towards a new Laos / Soren Ivarsson -- Women, space, and history / Andrew Walker -- Elites in exile / Si-ambhaivan Sisombat Souvannavong --Ethnic change in highland Laos / Grant Evans -- The Lue of Muang Sing / Khampheng Thipmuntali -- Apprentice ethnographers / Grant Evans -- Royal relics / Ing-Britt Trankell -- Women's power and Theravada Buddhism / H. Leedom Lefferts, Jr. -- Books of search / Peter Koret -- Lao as a national language / N.J. Enfield.