Showing 1 - 10 of 13
A love letter to a city in flux
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 21/02/2020
» Very Thai (2005) was about things. About teasing the meaning of Thai out of objects and signs, ranging from the sublime symbolism of Thai design to the question why the paper napkins in all everyday Thai eateries were pink in colour and stupidly small in size.
Safeguarding a saga
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 04/02/2020
» Under the Khmer Rouge regime in the late 1970s, Cambodian arts were almost crushed out of existence. The Royal Ballet was famously revived in the 1980s, but Cambodia also had popular traditions of music, dance, drama and puppetry. In 1998, a group started to revive these. They located surviving artists to teach a new generation of children in villages, schools and temples.
The formidable alliance underlying modern Thai history
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 24/01/2020
» Since the mid-19th century, according to Wasana Wongsurawat, the Thai elite has remained in power through a simple two-part formula. First, cultivate the support of the leading Thai-Chinese businessmen to secure the economic base. Second, align with the dominant world power of the moment.
The best prime minister Thailand never elected
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 16/11/2018
» Anand Panyarachun's two spells as unelected prime minister in 1991-2 had such a profound effect that they now seem preordained by history. This splendid book shows how the reality was otherwise.
Benjarong in detail
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 05/01/2018
» Benjarong is the brightly coloured porcelain made in China for the Thai market which enjoyed a peak of popularity in the 19th century. Dawn Rooney sets out to provide "a single reference source for Bencharong ... the book I wish had been available when I first became interested in this little-known form of ceramic art 20 years ago".
Understanding China's banks
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 26/01/2017
» Every couple of years now, a book appears predicting the imminent crisis, breakdown, collapse or disintegration of China. The professor Cassandra touting a recent example passed through Bangkok last week. Among such works there is a subset that focuses on finance, especially banking. These books and articles argue that China's banks are inefficient because of government control; that they are racking up debt, much of which is hidden; and that, unless they are quickly privatised, they will be the spark for the aforesaid crisis, breakdown, collapse, or disintegration. In the last month, I have twice been treated to this argument first-hand, once from an American and once from a Japanese.
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).