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Thailand's Struggle for Democracy: The Life and Times of M. R. Seni Pramoj. By DAVID VAN PRAAGH. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1996. xviii, 358 pp. $34.95 (cloth).
David Van Praagh's revised biography of M. R. Seni Pamoj offers a reedited text, extensive coverage of recent Thai politics, and a new introduction that attempts to relate democratization in Thailand to the same process in other Asian countries. He devotes so much space to the 15-year period since Seni retired from politics that the text has overstretched its original biographical framework, yet the flaws that marred the original version -- published as Alone on the Sharp Edge (Bangkok: Duang Kamol, 1989) -- remain unremedied.
Van Praagh explains the book's main shortcoming when he acknowledges that he is a journalist, not a historian. Because he has reported on Thailand since the 1960s, his narrative account of recent Thai politics has merit, but in the earlier chapters he relies too much on his subject's self-serving recollections,...