Amnesia: A History of Democratic Idealism in Modern Thailand

Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Thai Language Conventions
Introduction The 1932 Revolution in Thai History
	The Standard View of Thai Democracy: The King’s Gift
	The Revisionist View: Commoners’ Struggle and 1932’s Importance Today
	A New Interpretation: The Insiders and Outsiders Who Made Democracy
	The Book Outline: Forging Democracy amid Political Conflict
Chapter One The New Regime and the Old: Compromise, Rebellion, and the Enemies Within
	The Past as Prologue: The Rapid Rise and Fall of Thai Absolutism
	A Shaky Coalition Forms and Royalists Fight Back
	The Bowondet Rebellion and the End of Conciliation
	The People’s Party Turns on Its Enemies: Prisoners in the Wake of Bowondet
	Phibun’s Rise: The Military Takes Power and Stages Show Trials
	Conclusion
Chapter Two A Fragile Alliance: The Working Classes and the People’s Party
	Bangkok: The Growth of a City and the “Bad” Chinese
	City Labor after 1932 and Their Spokesmen
	The People’s Party Cautiously Supports Workers
	Wartime Labor: The Promise and Peril of Japanese Power
	Lukjin Labor become Thai Patriots
	Labor 1945–1947: Civilian Democracy and the Legacy of the War
	Conclusion
Chapter Three Spokesmen for the Peasantry: The Revolution and Social Welfare
	The Stable Disorder of Agrarian Semicapitalism
	Outsiders Clamor for Rural Improvement
	Pridi’s Utopian Solution
	Economic Nationalism and the Status Quo
	Conclusion
Chapter Four Making Citizens: Education and Propaganda in the New Order
	Young Teachers Attack the Establishment
	Old Regime Education: Subjects First, Citizens Second
	New Regime Ethics, the Expansion of Schooling, and the Chinese Problem
	Thammasat: The People’s University
	Propaganda: Democratic Paternalism on Tour and on Air
	Making the Constitution Sacred and Profane
	Conclusion
Chapter Five Buddhist Democracy in the Revolution
	Revolutionary Idealism Finds Fertile Ground
	Cultivating a Rural Elite: State Buddhism’s Local Impact
	Country Monks Demand the “Restoration” of Buddhist Democracy
	The Government Enters the Fray: Reform, Symbolism, and the Limits of Religious Activism
	Conclusion
Chapter Six The Revolution Betrayed: Triumph and Tragedy in Assembly Politics
	Activists Protest Corruption and the Growth of Military Budgets
	The Center Responds: Special Courts and the Attack on Parliament
	Outsiders Battle to Expand Democracy
	Democracy in the Pacific War: Autocracy’s Brief Victory Unravels
	The Heady Confusion of Postwar Democracy
	February 1949: The Idealists’ Desperate Gamble
	Conclusion
Conclusion History beyond Royalism
Notes
Bibliography
	National Archives of Thailand Files
	Other Sources
Index