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KING BHUMIBOL ADULYADEJ : A LIFE’S WORK
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KING BHUMIBOL ADULYADEJ : A LIFE’S WORK

Nicholas Grossman & Dominic Faulder
LIKE NEW, HARDCOVER

RM28.00

Thailand Monarchy In Perspective

Remarks Free Cover-Pages Wrapping
ISBN 9789814260565
Book Condition LIKE NEW
Format HARDCOVER
Publisher Editions Didier Millet
Publication Date 01 Aug 2012
Pages 400
Weight 2.2 kg
Dimension 28 × 20.5 × 4.5 cm
Availability: Out of stock

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King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand is the world’s longest reigning monarch. Indeed, his 65-year reign is one of the longest in world history, an achievement few would have predicted when the Thai king acceded the throne after the mysterious death of his brother in 1946.
 
Bhumibol Adulyadej, also called Phumiphon Adunlayadet or Rama IX, (born December 5, 1927, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.—died October 13, 2016, Bangkok, Thailand), ninth king of the Chakkri dynasty (1950–2016), which has ruled or reigned in Thailand from 1782, and Thailand’s longest-serving monarch.
 
He was a grandson of King Chulalongkorn and was born while his father, Prince Mahidol of Songkhla, was studying at Harvard University. His older brother, Ananda Mahidol, became king in 1935, but on June 9, 1946, Ananda was found dead in his bed of a gunshot wound. Bhumibol immediately succeeded to the throne following Ananda’s mysterious death (the circumstances of which were never explained). He married a distant cousin, Sirikit Kitiyakara, in April 1950 and was formally crowned on May 5, 1950.


King Bhumibol Adulyadej: A Life’s Work is the story of King Rama the 9th’s life, reign and work and reading this book again after the passing of this great man. How did King Bhumibol revive the sinking fortunes of the Thai monarchy? Why has he become arguably the most revered king in Thai history? This illustrated biography tells that remarkable story.
 
He devoted his life for the betterment of the country and worked tirelessly for his beloved people. I can go on forever about all his great accomplishments but that would just be repetitive to what everyone here in Thailand already knows.
 
This is a fascinating and insightful biography of one of the world’s longest reigning and most revered monarchs. King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand is the world’s longest reigning living monarch – an achievement few would have predicted when the Thai king acceded the throne after the mysterious death of his brother in 1946.
 
Beginning with an introduction explaining the unique history and traditions of the Thai monarchy, King Bhumibol Adulyadej offers a fresh and insightful account of his life, from his birth in America and education in Europe to his unexpected accession to the throne.
 
King Bhumibol Adulyadej: A Life’s Work tells that remarkable story. Divided into three parts – The Life, The Work and The Crown – this illustrated account follows the monarch through nine decades of domestic and global upheaval and progress.
 
The volume explains why development became the overriding focus of his reign and how he sought to improve the security and well-being of his people. It also takes a fresh look at rarely examined and often misunderstood institutions related to the throne, including the Crown Property Bureau and Privy Council, and includes essays on Thailand’s law of lese-majeste and the process of succession. For both general readers and specialists, King Bhumibol Adulyadej: A Life’s Work offers fresh insights into Thailand and its unique monarchy.
 
Following him through the Cold War and Indochina War periods, the book shows how the king has used his position to help develop the country and its people while at the same time securing the status of the monarchy itself. This book explains why development became the overriding focus of his reign and how he sought to improve the security and well being of his people.
 
During his long reign, he has visited every part of Thailand and devoted much of his working life to fostering development. A scientist and engineer at heart, King Bhumibol became particularly preoccupied with improving the lives of the country’s farmer, whose livelihoods were defined by the vagaries of rainfall and drought.
 
It also takes a fresh look at rarely examined and often misunderstood institutions related to the throne, including the Crown Property Bureau and Privy Council, and includes essays on Thailand’s law of lese-majeste and the process of succession. For both general readers and specialists, King Bhumibol Adulyadej: A Life’s Work offers fresh insights into Thailand and its unique monarchy.
 
The book is organized thematically according to conventional modern Chakri history, replete with numerous photographs. Most of the chapters tend to emphatically reaffirm, and with an inkling of academic authority, what has in fact been well documented elsewhere in the national media.
 
It is the timing of the book which is interesting. It was produced during a period of (continuing) intense division in Thai society and not long after the state sanctioned military massacre of pro-democracy (Red Shirt) protestors in April/May 2010.
 
Perhaps that was the purpose in the timing of publication, or as a refutation to Paul Handley’s book The King Never Smiles. The book’s editors show either a lack of understanding or a blatant bias in regard to a few comments on the Red Shirt movement, disregarding the issues of concern among the masses and why they could not even get the political party they voted for three times without disqualification, citizens beaten, incarcerated and occasionally killed in the process.
 
These matters of course are never discussed and perhaps have no place in a volume on the life of the monarch, which makes one wonder why a scattering of one-sided political statements interspersed throughout the text were ever included.
 
The volume concludes with detailed essays on the institutions, laws, processes and traditions that uphold and surround the crown.

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