| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
When Ian Brown first visited Thailand in the 1970s, it was a deeply fragmented place. The Vietnam War was raging and US Army personnel dominated downtown Bangkok. In the country's universities, leftists of varying degrees of radicalization fought ideological battles against a conservative military and business elite. Extrajudicial violence was commonplace, and intrigue about the true extent of Communist subversion in the country reigned. It was the height of the Cold War, and there was a palpable sense that ideological forces should be used to determine both the country's future and a correct interpretation of the past.1 So it is notable that Ian's early work not only managed to remain aloof from the political cauldron in which it was written, but that it was so clearly opposed to the historical determinism that was such a prevalent feature of the time
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