Thailand: Origins of Military Rule

The army ruled Thailand almost continuously since 1932. What are the reasons? Why did the army allow the U.S. to set up a vast military presence in Thailand? Why is the guerilla war there now escallating? Elliott s carefully documented history of Thailand from the early 1800s to 1976 is a scholarly and radical answer to these questions. He analyses the Asiatic mode of production and shows how Thailand, despite escaping colonial rule, experienced penetration of Western imperialism. This is an important book dealing with the ways a pre-capitalist mode is superseded by capitalism, the dynamics of an underdeveloped social formation and the origins of revolutionary struggle)