Showing 1 - 6 of 6
From prostration to prostration
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 05/03/2021
» After leading a coup in 2014, Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha announced a code of "Twelve Thai Values", telling people how to think and behave. It is difficult to imagine Angela Merkel announcing "Twelve German Values", or even Narendra Modi announcing "Twelve Indian Values". Since the mid-19th century, there have been lots of Thai manuals about proper body language and oral language in social encounters. These books tell a story about power and hierarchy that Patrick Jory narrates in fascinating detail.
How Bangkok came to be
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 03/11/2017
» In 1963, Edward Van Roy arrived in Thailand to work on a survey of hilltribes. This was a golden era of anthropology with an emphasis on ethnicity and villages. Since his retirement from the UN in 1997, Van Roy has been tramping round the localities of old Bangkok, peering into the temples and shrines, rooting out the memories of the remaining old residents, and ransacking libraries for memoirs and histories.
The romance of the Siamese war elephant
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 03/03/2017
» 'Some so superb surpass a city's worth."
Truth is rarely simple
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 19/08/2013
» Thai political leaders don't write memoirs, so Abhisit Vejjajiva's account of events from his appointment as prime minister in December 2008 to the end of the red-shirt demonstration on April 20, 2010 is path-breaking. Abhisit explains that he wrote this memoir because red shirts have made political capital by claiming that government forces killed protesters in a brutal crackdown, so he needs to set the record straight: "We have heard plenty of lies _ I now ask for the opportunity to tell the truth."
The unofficial court jester of Modernising Siam
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 07/01/2013
» He claimed that his only aim was "to benefit the royalty, my country, and the Buddhist religion." But many others, especially those in power, thought he was a nut and a "Man of Great Nuisance to Society".
Burning resentments
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 14/05/2012
» This book begins in the debris after the violence of May 19-20, 2010. The remnant protesters are exhausted by the long campaign, demoralised by the violence turned against them, and utterly defiant. Claudio Sopranzetti accompanies one group on a train back home to Udon.