Written as a travelogue,
Surface Collection: Archaeological Travels in Southeast Asia
tackles the most pressing issues of cultural-heritage management in an engaging and accessible way. In each chapter the author makes the past relevant to the present through his encounters with archaeological sites. While the book's anecdotes are associated primarily with Thailand and Indonesia—from a decaying National Museum in Manila, to the search for traces of the thousands of Communists who were killed after an attempted coup in Bali, to the discovery of a bottle of perfume found among the personal effects of Indonesian ex-president Sukarno—they have broad international interest because of the issues they raise. These archaeological stories, again and again, remind us what history both remembers and conceals.