Small polities and expanding empires in upland Asia: An introduction

Abstract This Forum focuses on the many and diverse smaller polities in a region spanning lands from Bengal and Assam in the west to Yunnan in the east, and from the eastern Himalayas in the north to Thailand in the south. From the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, these polities underwent dramatic transformations when they faced the impact of Chinese and European encroachments. The ambition of this Forum is to reconnect academic research across the region. Even though this may be a new field of study for contemporary scholars, it is one that the smaller polities actively shaped long before the imperial onslaught. It is diverse, yet tied together by a multitude of interconnections, mobility, and integration through kinship, exchange, shared experiences, and warfare. Scholars of this region, who still work mostly from separate area-studies perspectives, face a challenge. The task ahead is to reconnect their conversations.