There are so many books out there, and seemingly never enough time to get to them all, we here at WoWasis tell ourselves. Decades into your life, you muse, you realize you never got around to some of the classics. We don’t know how many people are reading James Michener’s classic Tales of the South […]
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for the 'Culture & History' Category
WoWasis Banned Book review: Thailand, ‘A Kingdom in Crisis’ by Andrew MacGregor Marshall
The most talked-about topic in Thailand is also the least talked-about. The controversy on succession plans revolving around the eventual death of King Rama IX, Bhumibol Adulyadej is something everyone discusses, but only in private. To do so in public invites a prison sentence under Thailand’s draconian lèse-majesté laws. As Andrew MacGregor Marshall points out […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: Paul Gauguin in Tahiti: Noa Noa
Noa Noa, painter Paul Gauguin’s short book on his time in Tahiti, often gets ignored today. Gauguin, after all, has been chastised for “cutting and running,” leaving a family behind there. Gauguin, who died in 1903, isn’t alive to rebut anything, of course. But he does leave the reader with his sometimes whimsical and at […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: About Selkirk, the real Robinson Crusoe
Crusoe, of course, was a fictional character created by Daniel Defoe, who published his book in 1719. But his story was partly inspired by the true story of a man who was marooned on an uninhabited island. Diana Souhami’s Selkirk’s Island: The True and Strange Adventures of the Real Robinson Crusoe (2001, ISBN 0-15-100526-5) tells […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: ‘Americans In Thailand,’ a comprehensive history
If you’re like us here at WoWasis, you may very well be scratching your head, wondering why anyone would buy a book on a subject seemingly as narrow as the contributions of the citizens of North America to a country in Asia. We loved the book through. And think you will, too, especially if you […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: Early exotic air travel to Hawaii: ‘The History of Pan American’s Flying Boats’
We here at WoWasis have all see those pictures of those magnificent flying boats leaving to Hawaii, the Golden Gate Bridge or the Bay Bridge in the background. And we wondered: what was it like to fly in them? What services were offered? How much did a flight cost? Can we still see them in […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: ‘Art of the Aloha Shirt,’ indispensable for collectors
Every casual guy, it seems, loves aloha shirts from Hawaii, and that includes your WoWasis review staff. They’re not typically all that expensive, and cotton and rayon fabrics hold up well with many wearings (not so, unfortunately, with Tommy Bahama silks — even with mild washing, we’ve found they tend to rip apart by the […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: Bataan Death March: Mario Machi’s ‘Under the Rising Sun’
One of the most infamous incidents in World War II was the Bataan Death March, in which the Japanese military force-marched 60,000-80,000 Allied and Filipino prisoners along a 60 mile route. Along the way, thousands of prisoners died, bayoneted or shot by Japanese soldiers, or victims of wounds, disease, or malnourishment. And Mario Machi, an […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: ‘Aloha Attire,’ a handsome history of Hawaii’s fashion trade
Hawaii’s apparel industry encompasses more than aloha shirts, and the whole story, including women’s fashion, is told informatively by Linda B. Arthur, in her highly informative Aloha Attire: Hawaiian Dress in the Twentieth Century (2000, ISBN 0-7643-1015-1). We here at WoWasis loved the book. The author focuses on four traditional garment types worn in Hawaii, […]
Read the rest of this entry »A media giant flees Bangkok: farewell to photographer Nick Nostitz
Thailand, and Bangkok in particular, isn’t always an easy place for the working press. The latest to depart the Land of Smiles is noted documentary still photographer Nick Nostitz, who was recently roughed up by thugs associated with the PDRC (People’s Democratic Reform Committee). He was rescued from that fracas by Thai police, but has […]
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