Giants of Asia: Conversations with Thaksin by Tom Plate

Going home is an iconic theme of literature and music that touches everyone’s heart. Bur 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 cell-phone billionaire retreated to a dacha 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, 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.