In the 1970s, the Thai state organized the Village Scout movement to counter communist insurgency. The movement was soon used to thwart growing demands for democratic reform, recruiting five million m
The 547 Buddhist jatakas, or verse parables, recount the Buddha’s lives in previous incarnations. In his penultimate and most famous incarnation, he appears as the Prince Vessantara, perfecting the vi
Explores the use of ritual in nation-state formation, demonstrating how the Village Scout initiation ritual sought to inspire nationalist sentiment in order to ward off apparent external threats of co
Glimpses of village life during a tumultuous period of Thai historySet in northern Thailand during the mid-1970s, the stories in this collection capture a period of dramatic social and economic change
