The forces of globalization – industrial capitalism, consumerism and so forth – came to rural Thailand in earnest in the late 1960s and then the 1970s. This occurred in the period of anti-communist frenzy that gripped the aristocratic elite of the Kingdom as revolutions were unfolding in different ways in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Anyone who challenged the processes of change, which of course brought enormous monetary gains to that very same aristocratic elite, was subsequently labeled a Communist and a terrorist and treated as an enemy of the state – the aristocracy is doing the same thing today in 2010.
Read the full review here.
