The question is this, and it has significance even beyond the situation in Burma: when a country’s leadership does everything possible in defiance of the rule of law, should it be sanctioned out of all engagement? That is the tack being followed by most countries vis-à-vis Burma. Thant Myint-U wonders whether the West’s tendency to identify so much with Aung San Suu Kyi is in the interests of ordinary Burmese. Isolation may take its toll on repressive regimes, but they hurt the common people even more.

The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand’s Bhumibol Adulyadej

Paul M. Handley

This book has been rather controversial in Thailand. But it is a good starting place for readers keen to understand the dynamics of the recent coup — blessed by the palace, and some say even set in motion by it — removing Thaksin Shinawatra. It conveys the central space held by monarchy in Thailand’s politics. And on the sidelines, one gets a sense of the country’s long and turbulent history of coups, of the importance of having the military on one’s side to retain power in “the land of smiles”.