George Coedes is well known as the great historian and epigraphist of south-East Asia. For this book, Les peuples de la peninsule Indochinoise, the professor comments in his introduction that in the past 10 years historical books on South-East Asia and especially on Indochina have been mostly devoted to the events after the 15th century A.D. Nearly all of them have only a brief resume of the events of the earlier 1,500 years. He therefore wrote this book to balance the two periods but deals only with Indochina, excluding the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia.

By the word 'South East Asia', we would like to limit ourselves only to those countries that had received strong Indian cultural influence in the past, namely: Champa in the present day Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia and Indonesia.
South East Asia lies between India and China and her civilization received the impetus from these two large countries. the main land of South East Asia or the peninsula of Indochina extends from China down to the south. though there are mountain chains which are difficult to cross, the large rivers on the peninsula have always been used as the means of communication: the Red River, the Mekong, the Chao Phaya River, the Salween and the Irrawaddy. Indonesia was probably connected in former times with Indochina.
The knowledge on the development and interchanges of these arts in South East Asia can be further improved through the proper archaeological excavation in each country and the study of the evolution of motifs.