In this spellbinding set of essays Byrne has successfully charted a new direction in writing archaeology and heritage. Surface Collection interweaves indigenous religion, politics and heritage ethics in innovative and provocative ways, bringing the unique materialities of Southeast Asia within the large framing of contemporary social archaeology. It is quite simply a tour de force.

Lynn Meskell, Professor of Anthropology, Stanford University

In part travel book, in part heritage theory, in part a series of fascinating excursions into southeast Asian history, Surface Collection is a wonderful read, but also an important and thought-provoking contribution to the increasingly vital debates about public memory, political violence, and conflicted histories.

Nicholas Thomas, University of Cambridge

The book relates stories from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Burma in a series of nuanced and elegant travel meditations which are full of unexpected discoveries, conundrums and ironies. . . . Surface Collection is a feast for anyone who values an intelligent and sensitive travel narrative, full of self revelation and the grace of discovery of the other. It is an elegant and vivid travel story infused with a deeply perceptive understanding of the complexities, false leads, contradictions and joys of discovering the past of others and seeing it through new eyes. Denis points out that bearing witness to the past includes bearing witness with our bodies and our emotions as well as our intellect. In doing so on his travels, he gives us a range of extraordinary insights into the hidden and subtle past and present of Southeast Asia.

Historic Environment

Exquisite and erudite, here Denis Byrne opens a new chapter in archaeological studies. Traces of the past are invested not just with their objective being, but a whole archaeology of feelings electrifies the relationships between the narrator, writingwith Proustian sensitivity, the things of the world, which now have the dignity of major historical players, and you the reader, enchanted by a new way of thinking....

Stephen Muecke, professor of creative writing, Flinders University

Exquisite and erudite, here Denis Byrne opens a new chapter in archaeological studies. Traces of the past are invested not
just with their objective being, but a whole archaeology of feelings electrifies the relationships between the narrator, writing
with Proustian sensitivity, the things of the world, which now have the dignity of major historical players, and you the
reader, enchanted by a new way of thinking.

Stephen Muecke, professor of creative writing, Flinders University