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About the Book
Going home is an iconic theme of literature and music that touches everyone's heart. But rarely has that journey looked more like an impossible dream than for Thaksin Shinawatra, the much loved and much hated former prime minister of Thailand. Expelled from the former Siam by a military coup in 2006, the telecom billionaire retreated to a villa in Dubai to bide his time and plot his triumphant return.
While in exile in Dubai, Thaksin tells his tale of triumph and betrayal to American journalist Tom Plate, as well as his personal thoughts about poverty reduction, power politics, and the future of democracy in Asia - and why he prefers to lose at golf. In this volume, Plate masterfully dissects the mogul who ran his country like a CEO until the tanks came to show who was boss.
About the Author
Professor Tom Plate is the author of eight non fiction books, including the bestsellers Confessions of an American Media Man (2007), Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew (2010) and Conversations with Mahathir Mohamad (2011).
Professor Plate has lectured at major institutions of higher learning in Asia and America, including Kyoto University, United Arab Emirates University, the U.S Pacific Command, and Stanford University. At the University of California, LA, he pioneered courses on the politics and media on Asia. Today he is the Distinguished Scholar of Asian and Pacific Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Plate's newspaper journalism about Asia was launched in 1996 on the op-ed pages sof the Los Angeles Times. Four years later, it was reconstituted in international syndication, and now appears in other newspapers, making it America's longest-running op-ed column on Asia and America.
A career journalist who has held high-level positions at the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, Time magazine, New York magazine, and CBS, among others U.S media institutions, he has been honoured by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Greater Los Angeles Press Club, and by the California Newspaper Publishers Association. He is a member of the Century Association of New York.
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