Showing 1-10 of 52 results
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Judging by the cover
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 02/09/2022
» We first published A History Of Thailand in 2005, 17 years ago. We have just prepared a fourth edition, adding a new chapter on the extraordinary events since 2005, and over 200 other changes based on new research, mostly by Thai historians. We needed a new cover to signal that this edition is really different.
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A personal reflection on Thailand as a nation
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 20/05/2022
» Historian alone is an inadequate description. Charnvit Kasetsiri is a historian-activist. In 1973, he wrote a pioneering history of Ayutthaya as a Cornell University doctorate, published by Oxford University Press. He taught at Thammasat University for five decades and briefly served as rector. He has presented on Thai history at countless international gatherings. He has promoted the work of his students and colleagues so often that his prefaces for their works fill a fat book.
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The Bunnag clan from the inside
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 01/04/2022
» Bunnag may be the best-known surname in Thailand because of the size of the clan, its historical role, and the name's blessed two-syllable brevity. The resounding title of this book suggests a grand tale of the clan marching through history. Not so. This is an intensely personal account of one person refinding himself in the shadow of the past.
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Remembering the history that some want forgotten
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 11/03/2022
» Royalist history paints 1932 as a coup by a self-interested clique which thwarted King Prajadhipok's wish to introduce a constitution and led Thailand to militarism and fascism. In 2017, the plaque commemorating 1932 was ripped out of the Royal Plaza -- symbolising the wish to cancel all memory of the event. Democratic history claims 1932 as a revolution which launched Thailand towards democracy and a modern society in which the majority can participate and benefit. In 2020 the youth activists reinstalled the plaque in cyberspace and called themselves the New People's Party. The event matters, one way or the other, down to today.
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Putting the humanity into history
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 21/01/2022
» The King Of Bangkok is a graphic novel that tells the story of Thai politics over a generation from 1982 to 2012 from the angle of a trio of northeastern villagers drawn to Bangkok. The book aims to subvert more conventional accounts by using fiction rather than "history", by leading with pictures rather than words, and by focusing on ordinary people rather than generals, tycoons and politicians.
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The age of magical capitalism
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 07/01/2022
» At a press conference in 2016, Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha tugged open his shirt to reveal over a dozen amulets hanging on his chest, and explained these would give him moral support in negotiations with Russia's President Putin. The leader of globalised Thailand was vaunting the use in international diplomacy of devices made with arcane substances and blessed by monks with a reputation for expertise in magic.
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Two deaths in Bangkok in 1856 and their consequences
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 17/12/2021
» The Bowring Treaty of 1855 is a landmark of Thailand's modern history. The treaty opened the door for the colonial invasion of Siam's economy, and helped drag Siam into the modern world. It's a story about the great wheels of history, especially of colonial expansion and the cultural collision of East and West. But such events of great practical and symbolic significance are also about people, about the "big people" who shape these events, and the "little people" who get caught up in them by fate.
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A slice of social history
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 06/08/2021
» Members of the household kept sneaking off with this book but were betrayed by their giggles and sighs of nostalgia. It is great fun. Its creation was clearly a labour of love and joy. But it is also the work of a serious and skilled historian.
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Death by a thousand cuts
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 09/07/2021
» The film director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, is the most celebrated Thai creative artist in the world today, awarded the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2010 and a string of other international prizes. After wrestling with the Thai censors, he decided first to stop showing his films in Thailand, and then to stop making his films here. He has recently been making a film with an international star cast in Colombia, almost exactly the opposite point on the globe, the farthest possible distance from Thailand on the planet.
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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.
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