Let s Go West sagte sich Oliver Tappe und wagte vor 20 Jahren den Sprung uber den grossen Teich. Das Ziel: Die Kustenmetropole Los Angeles. Seinen Lebensunterhalt verdient sich der Wahlamerikaner als Fremdenfuhrer. In ubergrossen Reisebussen kutschiert er mit deutschen Pauschaltouristen durch den Wilden Westen. Heute in Hollywood morgen in Las Vegas. Langeweile kommt auf Ollies Bustouren jedenfalls nicht auf. Scheintote Rentner gehoren ebenso zum Alltag des Reiseleiters, wie liebestolle Ehefrauen und hungrige Schwarzbaren auf der Jagd nach deutschen Urlaubern. Und wenn es mit den Gasten ausnahmsweise keine Probleme gibt, tritt Ollie auch selbst gern einmal in das ein oder andere Fettnapfchen. Mit Biss und einer gehorigen Portion Selbstironie berichtet Ollie von der Urlaubsfront und liefert dabei auch noch spannende Hintergrundinformationen uber Land und Leute. Traumjob oder Alptraum? Sie entscheiden."

The Second and Third Indochina Wars are the subject of important ongoing scholarship, but there has been little research on the lasting impact of wartime violence on local societies and populations, in Vietnam as well as in Laos and Cambodia. Today’s Lao, Vietnamese and Cambodian landscapes bear the imprint of competing violent ideologies and their perilous material manifestations. From battlefields and massively bombed terrain to reeducation camps and resettled villages, the past lingers on in the physical environment. The nine essays in this volume discuss post-conflict landscapes as contested spaces imbued with memory-work conveying differing interpretations of the recent past, expressed through material (even, monumental) objects, ritual performances, and oral narratives (or silences). While Cambodian, Lao and Vietnamese landscapes are filled with tenacious traces of a violent past, creating an unsolicited and malevolent sense of place among their inhabitants, they can in turn be transformed by actions of resilient and resourceful local communities.

Parallel to the abolition of Atlantic slavery, new forms of indentured labour stilled global capitalism's need for cheap, disposable labour. The famous 'coolie trade' - mainly Asian labourers transferred to French and British islands in the Indian Ocean, Australia, Indonesia, South Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas, as well as to Portuguese colonies in Africa - was one of the largest migration movements in global history. Indentured contract workers are perhaps the most revealing example of bonded labour in the grey area between the poles of chattel slavery and 'free' wage labour. This interdisciplinary volume addresses historically and regionally specific cases of bonded labour relations from the 18th century to sponsorship systems in the Arab Gulf States today.