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"The Village and Its Discontents: Meaning and Criticism in Late Modernity is a hopeful collection of essays about villages in Southeast Asia and across the world. The "village" is an idea, a construct, and a way of organising society. Villages constitute the basic unit of analyses in the arts, humanities and the social sciences, and these issues are presented through the collection of essays featured in this book. The contributors hope to generate interest in studying villages, to understand the meanings that attach themselves to the concept of the village, and to gain greater insights into multidisciplinary knowledge and analyses in today's highly developed global society."--Provided by publisher

"The making of modern Thailand is grounded in specific political institutions, Brahmanical tropes, sacred Buddhist traditions stylized with Hindu rituals. Over and above these mysterious practices and ancient customs, modern Thailand is a product of the late Great Rama IX Bhumibol Adulyadej. For most Thai people have only known one King. Born in Europe and educated during World War II, Bhumibol was the son of a Harvard medical doctor who had a penchant for jazz music and fast cars. When he returned to Thailand in 1951 to assume his royal duties, he could hardly speak Thai but his French and German were remarkable. Bhumibol had inherited an impoverished country with nothing but symbolic role as a figurehead monarch. He was surrounded by envious courtiers and royals from other families now sidelined by the rise of the Chakri. Scheming generals and authoritarian field marshals were emptying the Kingdom's coffers. By guile and wit, Bhumibol turned the tide by 1973. He became the most powerful modern warlord in the history of the Kingdom. He survived attempted murder, crafty politicians, corrupt generals, sycophantic courtiers and impoverished masses. When he died on October 13 2016, Bhumibol was already the longest standing monarch in the world. King Bhumibol was deeply respected and well-liked by farang and locals alike. Despite his massive social and economic achievements many problems continue to plague the Kingdom. These are prostitution, human rights issues, pollution, corruption, cronyism in Chinese businesses, border conflicts with Cambodia, and the refugee problem"--

In the first edition, the themes of hope, optimism, and progress of neoliberalism were examined in Asia and America. The second edition, Globalization: Power, Authority, and Legitimacy in Late Modernity, analyses the new pessimism that has descended on the globalized world. The America that was once the bastion of hope, optimism and progress is now showing clear signs of a superpower in decline. The first sign of the American decline since 1941 in Pearl Harbor was the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City on 11 September 2001. The other signs are the Vietnamization of Iraq, a

Globalization : power, authority, and legitimacy in late modernity -- Contents -- Preface to the 2nd and Enlarged Edition -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Cultural America and the Globalization of (Im)perfection -- 3. Asia -- 4. Money -- 5. Terrorism -- 6. Culture -- 7. Norms and Values -- 8. Technology and Population -- 9. War -- 10. End Thoughts -- References -- Index.

The intention of this paper is to draw attention to the conceptual and practical instruments presented in the Sufficiency Economy. The idea was first mooted by King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand. He observed that Thailand had a very large population with millions of poor people who face environmental obstacles and economic challenges daily. But his Kingdom also possesses immense natural resources but and suggested the Sufficiency Economy for people to supplement their income and improve their quality of life. This paper examines the philosophy and applications of the Sufficiency Economy and its validity today in terms of its ecological and political dimensions. It questions the basis and motivations of those who seek to criticize and undermine this economic strategy. The Sufficiency Economy provides for a rigorous program of human and ecological sustainability and with the proper application of the law, Thailand will be better able to avert environmental disasters of the future.

AbstractThis paper locates the Eurasian community's reconciliatory politics in an age marked by a proclivity for primordial purity within complex political, social and economic sub-systems. The word "Eurasian" has both old and new connotations; "old" because of primordial accents of physically "observable" biological mixture, and "difference"; and "new" because of cultural origins in the early to mid-sixteenth century. This paper concentrates on Eurasians in Singapore after 1945. Eurasians are the architects, objects, and subjects of a hybrid culture, a momentary reminder of a formerly powerful colonial presence in Southeast Asia. Since the early sixteenth century Eurasians have been transformed by the impact of at least three different phases of Western colonialism, and since 1955, two ongoing phases of internal colonialism by a predominantly Malay state in Malay[si]a, and a migrant, Chinese-dominated State in Singapore. Eurasians in Malaysia and Singapore survive as a fringe community: a politically, and demographically marginal community that has existed and continues to exist on the fringe of the modern Malay world, subjected through the years to the state policies of the Portuguese, Dutch, British, Malay, and Singapore governments, yet managing to preserve their culture of "Eurasianess" through a strategy of reconciliatory politics in late modernity.