This edited volume is a fitting tribute to Craig J. Reynolds, who for over four decades has influenced the field of Thai studies as a scholar, teacher, and mentor. The introduction, penned by volume editor Maurizio Peleggi, offers a brief but revealing assessment of Reynolds's career arc and commentary on his scholarship. Peleggi describes Reynolds as a master of the ‘hermeneutical essay’ which reinterprets historical facts in an attempt to tease out possible alternate readings of past narratives. In this volume, an impressive assembly of scholars has used a similar approach, isolating variables within Reynolds's own scholarship and re-calculating them to extract different meanings or pursue new directions.
One of Reynolds's most important contributions to the field lies in his ability to shed light on the relationship between the Thai intellectual tradition and the hegemonic nature of the state. This thoughtful and provocative collection of essays raises two important questions related to that crucial intersection of ideas. What role has historical writing played in establishing systems that regulate the proper exercise of power in Thai society? And what intellectual strategies have been deployed to challenge the established order?
Many contributors focus on the subversive. Reynolds himself has written on the lives of dissidents and intellectual mavericks in order to understand the condition under which they acquired these labels. Several essays in A Sarong for Clio take up this theme, examining how acceptable practices become subversive as cultural and intellectual paradigms shift from traditional to modern. One example is Thongchai Winichakul's essay on the case of Mr Kulap, a discredited Thai historian whose name became synonymous with the practice of ‘fabrication’. Reynolds's own work on Mr Kulap argued that he was ostracised for transgressing class boundaries, since he helped break the royal monopoly on both printing technology and the production of historical knowledge. Thongchai, however, recasts the infamous writer as a casualty of the transition from folk writing towards a new historiography based on empiricism. Mr Kulap was guilty of employing a hybrid methodology that blended both western models and the traditional use of legend and chronicle that other intellectual elites had already abandoned.
Likewise, James Ockey's biographic analysis of the Thai politician Kru Cham illustrates how premodern strategies for individual empowerment lost their potency in the scientific age. Kru Cham's erratic behaviour cultivated the impression that he was ‘mad’, which generated enormous publicity and helped him win provincial elections. His constituents interpreted this madness as a form of ‘possession’ and thus believed it gave him power to challenge ruling authority. Once psychiatry became the acceptable means of explaining madness, however, Kru Cham was diagnosed as an unstable and irrational character, unsuited to political life. A final subversive figure from this volume is the exiled Prince Prisdang, the subject of Tamara Loos's research on the distinction between Buddhist ‘life-writing’ and modern autobiography. Having fallen from royal grace, the Prince used biography as a means to restore his place in history, rather than to enact a moral display of penitence. This violation of the code of life-writing explains why his work was banned from the acceptable canon of Thai literature.
Other scholars demonstrate how royalist power has proved surprisingly nimble as it neutralises potential intellectual threats to its dominance. One of the strongest essays in this compilation is a provocative political reading of the folktale, Khun Chang Khun Paen. Authors Pasuk and Baker interpret the story as a potentially subversive manual, one that balances royal power based on merit against individual mastery derived from self-discipline and study. This original meaning was lost, they argue, when Kukrit Pramoj re-fashioned the epic as an illustration of obedience to royal authority.
The theme of appropriating opposing ideologies also underpins Patrick Jory's revisionist history of republicanism in Thailand. He suggests that the system has been a presence in Thai politics for much longer than anyone would suspect. It is only during the recent era of royal cultural hegemony that Thais have come to view republicanism as antithetical to their identity and values. Jory sees the spike in lèse majesté charges during the past decade is due in part to growth in digital media platforms, which make it harder for the state to restrict the expression of democratic ideals. The creation of new spaces for the exchange of ideas also informs Villa Vilaithong's piece on Thai business history, an area where very little scholarship has been done. Villa chronicles the rise and fall of Khoo Khaeng magazine, one of the first business marketing publications in Thailand. The magazine was an important factor in Thailand's economic growth in the 1980s. It created opportunities for scholars and professionals to collaborate, while promoting a more consumer-oriented approach to business.
Several chapters examine the intellectual frameworks used by royalists to diminish the appeal of democracy in Thailand. The phrase, ‘good governance’ forms the heart of Kasian Tejapira's work on Thailand's uneasy relationship with the IMF and the period of reform following the 1997 economic crisis. Originally intended as the tagline for a new era of neo-liberal economic order in Thailand; ‘good-governance’ was localised by a Royalist-nationalist elite, who juxtaposed it with the ‘corruption’ of democratic governments in an effort to impose a reactionary moral order in Thailand (p. 193). Yoshinori Nishizaki's research on BJ Tower helps dismantle a long-standing narrative that reduces Thai rural politics to a question of vote-buying. Residents of Suphan Buri province value the tower, not as a material benefit, but as the source of a perceived increase in provincial prestige. Peleggi's own contribution tackles the manipulation of cultural heritage as yet another tactic for maintaining political legitimacy. He explains how scholars painstakingly constructed an art history narrative that confirmed the royalist myth of Sukhothai as the beginning of Thai civilisation and the birthplace of a distinct form of Buddhist sculpture. This plotline culminated in the establishment of the Sukhothai heritage site, a historical park designed to communicate ‘official’ values and solidify state control over cultural identity during the turbulent 1970s.
This collection of thought-provoking essays honours Craig Reynolds by providing new insights into the myriad of ways culture has functioned to enhance the power of the Thai state. Cultural norms have been transformed into a rigid form of law that protects political and social hierarchy. Tamara Loos observes that to study the fate of dissidents in Thai society is to acknowledge the creation of a power structure wherein, ‘Certain speech acts and behaviors became not just blasphemous but treasonous in this new poetics of subversion regarding monarchical power and Siamese nationalism.’ (p. 77)
