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Following a 1932 coup d'etat in Thailand that ended absolute monarchy and established a constitution, the Thai state that emerged has suppressed political dissent through detention, torture, forced reeducation, disappearances, assassinations, and massacres. In Plain Sight shows how these abuses, both hidden and occurring in public view, have become institutionalized.

In the 2000s, as the World Bank was reeling from revelations of past hydropower failures, it nonetheless promoted the enormous Nam Theun 2 project. For the first time, this book shows in detail why, despite assertions of success from the World Bank and other agencies, the dam's true story has been one of substantial loss for affected villagers and the regional environment.

Examination of postwar trials is now a thriving area of research, but Sharon W. Chamberlain is the first to offer an authoritative assessment of the legal proceedings convened in the Philippines. These were trials conducted by Asians, not Western powers, and centred on the abuses suffered by local inhabitants rather than by prisoners of war.

The first book to explore the critical problem of provisioning the "megacity." A historical study of Manila looks at the continuing challenges of getting food, water, and services to the millions of people who live in the world's megacities.

An exploration of subversive, ribald variations of the most important story in Theravada Buddhism.

In 2001, Thailand introduced universal health care reforms that have become some of the most celebrated in the world. Drawing on two years of fieldwork at a district hospital in northern Thailand, Bo Kyeong Seo examines how people in marginal and dependent social positions negotiate the process of obtaining care.

Between 1938 and 1941, the Philippine Commonwealth provided safe asylum to more than 1,300 German Jews. In highlighting the efforts by Philippine president Manual Quezon and High Commissioner Paul V. McNutt, Bonnie Harris offers fuller implications for our understanding of the Roosevelt administration's response to the Holocaust.

Thanks to its active role in national politics, the market economy, and popular culture, the Thai crown remains both the country's dominant institution and one of the world's wealthiest monarchies. Puangchon Unchanam examines the reign of Bhumibol Adulyadej or Rama IX and how the crown thrived by transforming itself into a ""bourgeois"" monarchy.