Covering the past three centuries of Thai history, this book reveals how a landscape of sparsely populated forest and jungle was transformed into villages and paddy fields, with a rural society of smallholder peasants and an urban society populated mainly by migrants from southern China. It demonstrates how throughout the twentieth century, Thailand has been drawn into the international system, the American camp in the Cold War, the economic gambit of rising Japan, and more recently, the forces of globalization. The authors also survey the country's transformation accompanying massive social evolution over recent decades. (Control of the nation state is still contested between forces with a patriarchal belief in change from above, and advocates of democracy and liberal values.)