Description: Thailand has become well known throughout the world for wonderful cuisine, great package holidays, sumptuous temples and textiles.
Review Quotes:
"The reader will be rewarded with some interesting detail on the nature of Thai society and intriguing insights into the historical and cultural conditions that have shaped, and are still shaping, Thai gender relations. While the author may argue that superficial understanding is the inevitable fate of the outside analyst, this books stands as testament to one scholar's lifetime rejection of such a mundane truism." --Journal of Sustainable Tourism
"Penny Van Esterik provides a valuable synthesis of much recent work in Thai ethnography including nearly three decades of her own observation and engagement in Thai studies ... This book offers a perceptive analysis of the complex intersections between gender and the nationalist project that will interest readers both in Thai Studies and beyond." --Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute "A stimulating account of a lifetime's engagement with issues concerning women in Thailand. It is a clearly written contribution to the cultural study of Thailand, and will inspire other authors to take up some of the issues and questions posed in the book." --The Australian Journal of Anthropology "Throughout, Van Esterik is careful to ground her analysis of Thai prostitution, marriage, and overall gender relation with in the larger context of Southeast Asia. In sum, this is a highly informative and insightful book the should be of interest to anyone who is concerned with the intersection of gender and public culture, in Thailand or elsewhere." --Journal of Asian Studies