"Laos has had a particularly turbulent recent history. Since the late nineteenth century, its territorial borders have been defined and redefined at the whim of successive outside forces, its national identity contrived and manipulated to suit the dominant power of the moment. The articulations of nation status have, for the most part, been inaccessible and irrelevant to the inhabitants of Laos, who have been far more concerned with the day-to-day battle to survive." (Page 75)