PPT isn’t at all sure that the king was venerated as much as propagandized and we are not convinced that the “tale” is entirely dispiriting. Indeed, the review suggests why a crisis is not always dispiriting:
What has occurred in Bangkok is a war for the country’s very soul between the centuries-old web of interests centered in the capital city, made up of the courtiers in the palace and the business community and others who support them. They are arrayed against millions of formerly poverty-stricken rural dwellers in the northeast of the country who were awakened starting in 2001 by telecommunications billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra, who instituted a series of strong populist measures in the northeast to better their welfare and into the process becoming by far the most popular monarch Thailand had ever seen.