Welcome to our book review site go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Amnesia
Thailand's monarchy and military have dominated the narrative of the country's modern history, and their leadership is often accepted as evidence of a cultural preference for authoritarianism. Despite a long history of military coups that have upended the course of the country's democracy, however, Thailand's democratic history is a vital though largely ignored aspect of modern Thai society. Based on extensive archival research, Amnesia delves into the social and political beginnings of Thai democracy and explains how a bloodless revolution against the monarchy in 1932 introduced a constitutional democracy and ignited enduring hopes for a fairer society and a more representative government. The "People's Party," a small group of commoners who staged the revolution in the name of democracy, found an enthusiastic audience for their bold populist rhetoric among wide swathes of society. In Amnesia, Arjun Subrahmanyan illustrates how the idealism of the first decade of Thai democracy, now largely forgotten, still shapes Thai society.
Geopolitics and China's Patronage Strategy
This book highlights how resource constraints and client agency impact China’s patronage policy in their pursuit of regional geopolitical power. By combining for the first time the limit of great power patrons’ resources and the agency of client countries, this book accentuates that the costs and uncertainty require China to be a wary patron who must adjust its patronage priorities in order to deal with geopolitical competition. Using China’s patronage delivery to North Vietnam during the fierce and geopolitically competitive period of the Vietnam War, the book underscores that neighboring countries’ domestic political dynamics, which are out of Beijing’s control, drive costs and u...
Three Faces of Populism in Asia
Drawing on evidence from eight case studies from across three Asian subregions, this volume highlights the distinctive features of Asian populism in comparison with Western experiences. In contrast to the latter, populist practices in Asia tend to exhibit an ambiguous nature, often characterized by ad hoc and mixed ideological add-ons. The case studies shed light on the cultural dimension of populism, an aspect that has been largely overlooked in Western contexts. Empirical evidence shows that political culture and identity politics exert an influence on populist practices in Asia. In the meantime, populist attitudes towards the role of politicians, the popular will and the relationship between the elite and the people can serve as an explanatory variable for political outcomes. The relationship between populism and democracy in Asia is observed to be more intricate than that in Western contexts. Populism is not necessarily endogenous to democracy, and thus its emergence may not solely be a response to the crisis of democracy. The book presents a valuable resource for scholars and students of Asian politics and those looking at the phenomenon of populism through a comparative lens.
Political Authority and Provincial Identity in Thailand
The powerful Thai politician Banharn Silpa-archa has been disparaged as a corrupt operator who for years channeled excessive state funds into developing his own rural province. This book reinterprets Banharm's career and offers a detailed portrait of the voters who support him. Relying on extensive interviews, the author shows how Banharm's constituents have developed a strong provincial identity based on their pride in his advancement of their province, Suphanburi, which many now call "Banharm-buri," the place of Banharm. Yoshinori Nishizaki's analysis challenges simplistic perceptions of rural Thai voters and raises vital questions about contemporary democracy in Thailand. Yoshinori Nishiz...
The Japanese Soldiers in Second World War Thailand
"Kakizaki re-examines the real image of the Thai-Japanese alliance during World War II by focusing on the incidents and accidents occurred by the passage or stationing of the Japanese army in Thailand. The book reveals the grassroot relation between Thais and Japanese by utilizing the records of incidents/accidents between Thais and Japanese during the war. The results show that although the number of incidents/accidents was large at the initial and the last stages of war, those caused by Thais were skyrocketing at the last stage of war while those caused by Japanese reached the peak at the initial stage of war before decreasing. Therefore, the real image of the Thai-Japanese alliance was the alliance of endurance that both Thais and Japanese had to be forced to endure the frequently-occurred incidents/accidents. A book for students and academics interested in the Thai/ Southeast Asian war history during World War II"--
Citizen Designs
What does it mean to design democratic cities and democratic citizens in a time of mass urbanization and volatile political transformation? Citizen Designs: City-Making and Democracy in Northeastern Thailand addresses this question by exploring the ways that democratic urban planning projects intersect with emerging political aspirations among squatters living in the northeastern Thai city of Khon Kaen. Based on ethnographic and historical research conducted since 2007, Citizen Designs describes how residents of Khon Kaen’s railway squatter communities used Thailand’s experiment in participatory urban planning as a means of reimagining their citizenship, remaking their communities, and a...
Thailand
“As a historian, Charnvit Kasetsiri is not satisfied simply to have found an instructive angle from which to explore the mysteries in a modern experimental monarchy. His keen sense of time has filled his narrative with insights that only a few people could have identified. To me, that is a mark of one with a fine sense of what the past can mean. I thank him for the chance to see this mature and thoughtful Charnvit at work and commend this book to everyone who wants to understand Thailand better.” -- Wang Gungwu, National University of Singapore “Charnvit makes clear in the final pages of Thailand: A Struggle for the Nation that he is not very sanguine about the country’s future. Duri...
