Author: Pridi Banomyong
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332
Get Book
Book Description
Pridi Banomyong (1900-83) was one of the greatest figures in twentieth-century Thailand. At the age of just twenty-seven, he started the movement which led to the 1932 revolution against Thailand's absolute monarchy. Through the 1930s, he introduced a wide range of reforms in law, local administration, economic policy, and foreign affairs. During the Second World War, he formed the Seri Thai resistance movement against the Japanese occupation. After the war, he served briefly as prime minister and became deeply involved in the politics of the Asian region during decolonization. From 1947 onwards, Pridi was opposed by US-backed militarists who seized power by coup, murdered his associates, overturned many of his liberal reforms, and established dictatorial rule. In 1949 he fled into exile and never returned. Pridi by Pridi contains nineteen selections from Pridi's writings, speeches, and interviews which focus on his personal background and his active political career from 1932 to 1949. They include a new translation of the "outline economic plan" of 1932, which still excites controversy today. They also include first-ever English translations of Pridi's most important writings about the 1932 revolution, the Seri Thai movement, the monarchy, and his contemporaries.
Author: Pridi Banomyong
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332
View
Book Description
Pridi Banomyong (1900-83) was one of the greatest figures in twentieth-century Thailand. At the age of just twenty-seven, he started the movement which led to the 1932 revolution against Thailand's absolute monarchy. Through the 1930s, he introduced a wide range of reforms in law, local administration, economic policy, and foreign affairs. During the Second World War, he formed the Seri Thai resistance movement against the Japanese occupation. After the war, he served briefly as prime minister and became deeply involved in the politics of the Asian region during decolonization. From 1947 onwards, Pridi was opposed by US-backed militarists who seized power by coup, murdered his associates, overturned many of his liberal reforms, and established dictatorial rule. In 1949 he fled into exile and never returned. Pridi by Pridi contains nineteen selections from Pridi's writings, speeches, and interviews which focus on his personal background and his active political career from 1932 to 1949. They include a new translation of the "outline economic plan" of 1932, which still excites controversy today. They also include first-ever English translations of Pridi's most important writings about the 1932 revolution, the Seri Thai movement, the monarchy, and his contemporaries.
Author: Marie-Sybille de Vienne
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000567621
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310
View
Book Description
Based on two decades of fieldwork, including over a hundred interviews with various political and economic actors at different social levels, as well as documentary and media analysis, this volume presents an account of the Buddhist monarchy in Thailand, offering a sociology of elites, an analysis of the economic influence of the Crown and an examination of the magic and ritual dimension of kingship. An exploration of the role and status of the Palace over the last century, whether as a guarantor of democracy, a symbol of stability, a source of power or an object of popular discontent, Thailand’s Buddhist Kingship in the 20th and 21st Centuries will appeal to scholars of sociology and anthropology with interests in material religion, politics and Southeast Asian studies.
Author: Chris Baker
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009014838
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 405
View
Book Description
A History of Thailand offers a lively and accessible account of Thailand's political, economic, social, and cultural history.
Author: Federico Ferrara
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316299252
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages :
View
Book Description
Based on extensive, empirical research, The Political Development of Modern Thailand analyses the country's political history from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Long known for political instability, Thailand was thrust into a deep state of crisis by a royalist military coup staged in 2006. Since then, conservative royalists have overthrown more elected governments after violent street protests, while equally disruptive demonstrations staged by supporters of electoral democracy were crushed by military force. Federico Ferrara traces the roots of the crisis to unresolved struggles regarding the content of Thailand's national identity, dating back to the abolition of absolute monarchy in 1932. He explains the conflict's re-intensification with reference to a growing chasm between the hierarchical worldview of Thailand's hegemonic 'royal nationalism' and the aspirations that millions of ordinary people have come to harbour as a result of modernisation.
Author: Arjun Subrahmanyan
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438486529
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 380
View
Book Description
Describes the profound social impact of the overthrow of the Thai absolute monarchy in 1932, and explains the importance of democracy in a country long known for authoritarian politics. 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. Arjun Subrahmanyan is Senior Lecturer in Southeast Asian History at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia.
Author: Eugénie Mérieau
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1509927700
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 352
View
Book Description
This book analyses the unique constitutional system in operation in Thailand as a continuous process of bricolage between various Western constitutional models and Buddhist doctrines of Kingship. Reflecting on the category of 'constitutional monarchy' and its relationship with notions of the rule of law, it investigates the hybridised semi-authoritarian, semi-liberal monarchy that exists in Thailand. By studying constitutional texts and political practices in light of local legal doctrine, the book shows that the monarch's affirmation of extraordinary prerogative powers strongly rests on wider doctrinal claims about constitutionalism and the rule of law. This finding challenges commonly accepted assertions about Thailand, arguing that the King's political role is not the remnant of the 'unfinished' borrowing of Western constitutionalism, general disregard for the law, or cultural preference for 'charismatic authority', as generally thought. Drawing on materials and sources not previously available in English, this important work provides a comprehensive and critical account of the Thai 'mixed constitutional monarchy' from the late 19th century to the present day.
Author: Paul M. Handley
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300130591
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 512
View
Book Description
Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej, the only king ever born in the United States, came to the throne of his country in 1946 and is now the world's longest-serving monarch. This book tells the unexpected story of his life and 60-year rule: how a Western-raised boy came to be seen by his people as a living Buddha; and how a king widely seen as beneficent and apolitical could in fact be so deeply political, autocratic, and even brutal. Paul Handley provides an extensively researched, factual account of the king's youth and personal development, ascent to the throne, skilful political maneuverings, and attempt to shape Thailand as a Buddhist kingdom. Blasting apart the widely accepted image of the king as egalitarian and virtuous, Handley convincingly portrays an anti-democratic monarch who, together with allies in big business and the corrupt Thai military, has protected a centuries-old, barely-modified feudal dynasty. When at nineteen Bhumibol assumed the throne after the still-unsolved shooting of his brother, the Thai monarchy had been stripped of power and prestige. Over the ensuing decades, Bhumibol became the paramount political actor in the kingdom, crushing critics while attaining high status among his people. The book details this process and depicts Thailand's unique constitutional monarch in the full light of the facts.
Author: Daniel Lynch
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804779473
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320
View
Book Description
This book argues that democratization is inherently international: states democratize through a process of socialization to a liberal-rational global culture. This can clearly be seen in Taiwan and Thailand, where the elites and attentive public now accept democracy as universally valid. But in China, the ruling communist party resists democratization, in part because its leaders believe it would lead to China's "permanent decentering" in world history. As China's power increases, the party could begin restructuring global culture by inspiring actors in other Asian countries to uphold or restore authoritarian rule.
Author: Thak Chaloemtiarana
Publisher: SEAP Publications
ISBN: 9780877277422
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322
View
Book Description
A narration of the volatile period following the second world war in which coups and counter coups become the common occurrence of political manoeuvring. Includes the Sarit regime, and explains the nature of Thai despotic paternalism and the concept of democracy seen within this context.
Author: Daniel Fineman
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824818180
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 382
View
Book Description
The development of the Thai-American alliance from 1947 to 1958 dramatically transformed both countries' involvement in Southeast Asia. Bounded by two important political events in Thailand, an army coup in 1947 and the military's assumption of complete control of government in 1958, the period witnessed both the entrenchment of authoritarian military government in Thailand and a revolution in U.S.-Thai relations. During these years the modern Thai political system emerged, and the United States established its interest and influence in mainland Southeast Asian affairs. The developments of the period made possible American's later, more extensive, involvement in Indochina. A Special Relationship provides the most comprehensive analysis of this critical founding period of the Thai-American alliance. It reveals surprising new information on joint covert operations in Indochina, American support for suppression of government opponents, and CIA involvement in Thai domestic politics.
