Lands of Charm and Cruelty: Travels in Southeast Asia, 1st Vintage Departures [Paperback]

Stan Sesser (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 28, 1994

A rare and illuminating look at one of the most fascinating places in the world--a place of tyranny and repression that is also a place of beautiful people who warmly welcome the visitor, of ancient cultural traditions that still thrive today, of great religious relics and works of art. An enlightening, politically savvy, exotic journey of discovery. Maps.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With detail, expertise and a moral voice, freelance writer Sesser portrays five repressed lands. His narratives--reprinted from the New Yorker --begin with the contradictions of Singapore, prosperous and tidy, whose competent, incorruptible leaders rule by fear. In desperately poor Laos, where the United States dropped more bombs than on Nazi Germany, villagers fashion daily essentials from remnant munitions and the wreckage of downed planes. A chilling report on Cambodia warns of the political reemergence of the murderous Khmer Rouge. A portrait of Burma limns how that republic's form of Buddhism tolerates tyranny and describes the nascent protest movement led by Aung San Suu Kyi. Sesser does not condemn all logging in Borneo, but finds the telling detail: in Japan, the logs become plywood, as "the gold of the Sarawak rain forest is minted into pennies."
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Not a typical travel book, this work goes to the heart of Southeast Asian politics. In insightful, compelling prose, Sesser profiles five Southeast Asian neighbors: Burma, Singapore, Laos, Cambodia, and Borneo. All the contradictions are there: new BMW's driving next to crowded pedicabs; an indigenous tribe fighting to protect its rain forest from logging trucks; city dwellers without electricity living near the mansion of a Cambodian prince who has brought from China chefs, banquet waiters, and a doctor to check for poisoned food. Few are guiltless here, including we Americans, whose cluster bombs still cover large areas of these nations. In these probing essays, which appeared originally in The New Yorker , Sesser asks pointed questions: Why and how will the Khmer Rouge most likely return to power? How did Singapore become an economic giant, and at what expense to its citizens' freedoms? This book provides an important introduction to a critical area of the world, lands emerging from "the battlefield to the marketplace." Highly recommended.
- Doris Lynch, Oakland P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 306 pages
• Publisher: Vintage Books; 1st edition (June 28, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679742395
• ISBN-13: 978-0679742395
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,425,861 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absorbing book helped me understand Asia I lived in, November 9, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Lands of Charm and Cruelty: Travels in Southeast Asia, 1st Vintage Departures (Paperback)

Sesser's book was extremely helpful to me while I was living in the Far EAst in the late 90's. His essay on Singapore - discussing "the fear that even the best-educated Singaporeans live under" in their own country, accorded very well with my own observations. This book makes a wonderful corrective to the memoirs of Singapore's leader, Harry Lee Kuan Yew, and a great companion to Christopher Lingle's Singapore's Authoritarin Capitalism, Ian Buruma's essay, "The Nanny State of Asia" (in his book, The Missionary and the Libertine) and Francis Seow's A Prisoner in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore (...).

The other essays include a distressing one on the destruction of the rainforests of Borneo by Malaysian government officials in Sarawk - local officials use their five year appointments to loot the place, the fear of poverty in them overriding any environmental concerns, which (sadly, sadly) seemed a very western - ie, foreign - concern after reading this.

The Burma chapter is perhaps the most sobering of all - here the whole sad history of Burma's ruthless, inept, corrupt post-independence rule is laid out for the reader; Burma was ironically far more prosperous under British rule, when it known as "the rice bowl of Asia" (ie, it exported rice to the region) than under so-called independance. How very sad. Sesser's book is very informative and will be of great interest to anyone planning to vist/live in the region, or simply visit from the armchair.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Charming People, Cruel Regimes, April 24, 2003

By 

doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lands of Charm and Cruelty: Travels in Southeast Asia, 1st Vintage Departures (Paperback)

This is a fascinating book covering lands and peoples that get little notice in the West. Stan Sesser does not give us a touristy travelogue, but heavy-duty investigative reporting into the darker sides of these little known countries of Southeast Asia. His five long essays in this book cover Singapore, a bizarre construct of communist capitalism; Laos, a country that remains friendly and resilient even after a few centuries of being used violently as a pawn by larger empires; Cambodia, a land of strange politics where the genocidal Khmer Rouge have been welcomed as possible saviors into the modern regime; Burma, a potentially prosperous nation managed with horrific incompetence by paranoid and xenophobic hardliners; and finally Borneo (specifically the portion of that island controlled by Malaysia), which offers a chilling lesson in environmental devastation. It would have been nice to see similar coverage of Vietnam and Thailand, but there are only so many places Sesser can cover so strongly in one book. Sesser's main theme in his coverage is indeed charm vs. cruelty, as in these nations he has encountered some of the friendliest peoples and cultures in the world, which are being oppressed by the world's harshest regimes. While there have been many political developments since this book was written, especially in Cambodia, Sesser still offers many valuable lessons in the histories and social dynamics of these nations. Instead of a happy tourist diary of scenery and monuments, we get both the light and the dark of Southeast Asia in the most informative and enlightening ways.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Book on S.E. Asia, March 31, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lands of Charm and Cruelty: Travels in Southeast Asia, 1st Vintage Departures (Paperback)

Stan Sesser adds a great deal to the dialogue on S.E. Asian issues and experiences with this book. His first hand experiences and excellent research is evident in this well written and thought out book. What a shame it is out of print!