Pridi by Pridi

Pridi by Pridi

Author: Pridi Banomyong

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13:

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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.


Powers that be

Powers that be

Author: Sulak Sivaraksa

Publisher: Lantern Books

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 94

ISBN-13:

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This collection of essays concerns itself with the many facets of engaged Buddhism, from the very practical to the philosophical, that have expressed themselves throughout the history of Thailand in the life and work of Pridi Banomyong (1900-1983). Historian, religion scholar, and political analyst, Sulak Sivaraksa examines Banomyong's legacy and challenges contemporary Thais and people everywhere to consider their lives as worth more than the sum of material goods they own and instead discover a new, more spiritual, way of living in the world.


The Political Development of Modern Thailand

The Political Development of Modern Thailand

Author: Federico Ferrara

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-03-26

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 1107061814

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This book traces the roots of Thailand's political development from 1932 to the present, accounting for the intervening period's political turmoil.


Thailand's Secret War

Thailand's Secret War

Author: E. Bruce Reynolds

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005-01-06

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13: 1139442597

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This book is an absorbing account of secret operations and political intrigue in wartime Thailand. During World War II Free Thai organisations co-operated with Allied intelligence agencies in an effort to rescue their nation from the consequences of its 1941 alliance with Japan. They largely succeeded despite internal differences and the conflicting interests and policies of their would-be-allies, China, Great Britain and the United States. London's determination to punish Thailand placed the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) at a serious disadvantage in its rivalry with the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The US State Department, in contrast, strongly supported OSS operations in Thailand, viewing them as a vehicle for promoting American political and economic influence in mainland Southeast Asia. Declassification of the records of the OSS and the SOE permits full revelation of this complex story of heroic action and political intrigue.


The Ideal Man

The Ideal Man

Author: Joshua Kurlantzick

Publisher: Turner Publishing Company

Published: 2011-10-13

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 1118098110

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How the West's greatest spy in Asia tried to stop the new American way of war—and the steep price he paid for failing Jim Thompson landed in Thailand at the end of World War II, a former American society dilettante who became an Asian legend as a spy and silk magnate with access to Thai worlds outsiders never saw. As the Cold War reached Thailand, America had a choice: Should it, as Thompson believed, help other nations build democracies from their traditional cultures or, as his ex-OSS friend Willis Bird argued, remake the world through deception and self-serving alliances? In a story rich with insights and intrigue, this book explores a key Cold War episode that is still playing out today. Highlights a pivotal moment in Cold War history that set a course for American foreign policy that is still being followed today Explores the dynamics that put Thailand at the center of the Cold War and the fighting in neighboring Laos that escalated from sideshow to the largest covert operation America had ever engaged in Draws on personal recollections and includes atmospheric details that bring the people, events—and the Thailand of the time—to life Written by a journalist with extensive experience in Asian affairs who has spent years investigating every aspect of this story, including Thompson's tragic disappearance