Editor, Writer, Researcher
In Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale, the intrepid Adam Minter sets off to find some answers, traveling from his home in Malaysia to interview cleaners, sellers, sorters, exporters, and importers in Japan, India, West Africa, and North America.
Along with the stories of King Thibaw and Queen Supayalat, The King in Exile tells of the strange, twisted lives of their four daughters and seven grandchildren. As foreign visitors surge in, drawn by the idea of a new frontier, the book erodes the mythology, so pervasive in the region, of a happier, fairer era when white European men kept the grateful dumb natives gently in place.
The way he crushed the 1967 Samlaut Rebellion—torching villages, the summary executions, severed heads as trophies–was straight out of the French rulebook, particularly the Nghe-Tinh Rebellion chapter. Though the survivor memoirs usually depict the Sihanouk and Lon Nol periods as an idyllic time, “paradise” even ...
For one episode alone, this book will be treasured by anyone who–suffering from the temporary insanity induced by a civil war or stolen passport–has ever sought the counsel of a U.S. diplomatic mission.
Tl;dr? Student? Teacher? Fairly new to Thailand? You don't want this book. You need David K Wyatt's Thailand: A Short History. Which is longer and more thorough than this mess. Wyatt even covers the origin and range of Tai people if you're curious about the Shan, Tai Daeng, Lao, Tai Lu and their relatives. Genuine footnotes and bibliography too. Follow that with Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as Modern Nation State by Charles Keyes and The King Never Smiles by Paul Handley.
Susan J Cunningham 