Showing 1 - 9 of 9
At the crossroads of justice and virtue
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 10/07/2020
» The judiciary is the least studied element of the Thai polity. That did not matter much 25 years ago because it played almost no political role. But now the courts bring down governments, exile leaders, dissolve political parties, punish protesters and jail people for thought crimes. This book is long awaited and does not disappoint.
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 perfection of humour
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 02/06/2017
» The story of Vessantara, or Wetsandon, is perhaps the most famous and best-known tale in Thailand. Although originating among the jataka tales of India, most think it a local creation (Thais call it chadok). There is a Pali version in the early Buddhist texts, and official Thai-language adaptations since the 15th century. But the story also lives in popular memory, in pictures on wat walls, and in performances at annual festivals, and in these forms there is great scope for creative adaptation.
Bringing the birth stories to life
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 12/10/2015
» The jataka tales or birth stories are the most vivid and accessible part of Buddhist teaching. The Buddha, once he gained the ability to recall his past lives, related all 550 of them to the monks in his following. In some lives, he was a king, some a hermit, some a pauper, and in a few an animal. The 10 longest of these tales became associated with his 10 last lives and with his attainment of the "perfections" that enabled him to be born as the historical Buddha. In this book, this Great Ten have been translated anew for the first time in over a century.
At long last, history is told
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 04/05/2015
» Only a few years ago, the history of Thailand was often expressed as a "Thai race" that migrated down from the north to occupy a seemingly empty land, and then a string of kings defending them from violent neighbours and nasty colonialists. The Thai-Chinese scarcely made an appearance. A History Of Thai-Chinese, however, seeks to redress the balance.
From Dan Beach Bradley to Todd Lavelle
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 15/12/2014
» As a story, this account of Americans in Siam begins rather slowly. Missionaries who make very few converts. Traders who do very little trade. Diplomats with very little tact. In 1870s, the American consul sums up his countrymen in Siam as "mutinous sailors, rascally captains, quarrelling and libidinous missionaries". The only American who leaves a real mark on Siam's history in this era is the missionary-printer-newspaperman-medic, Dan Beach Bradley. By 1900, there are around 125 Americans in Siam.
The man behind the treaty
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 27/10/2014
» In Thai history, Bowring is the title of the 1855 treaty that is the major landmark in Siam's transition to the modern world. Bowring is also less well known as the author of a bulky book about Mongkut's Siam (the reign of King Rama IV). But John Bowring himself is like a character in a drama who is there because the plot requires him, but who never takes shape as a person.
Daring revision
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 04/02/2013
» The eminent art historian Piriya Krairiksh is a famous iconoclast. He brazenly proposed that the Ramkhamhaeng inscription, the Magna Carta of Thai history, had been faked by King Mongkut (Rama IV).
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".