Dr. Michael J. Montesano 's exposure to rural Southeast Asia, its farms, and its markets dates from 1983,when he began two years of service as United States Peace Corps volunteer and secondary-school teacher at the Thap Put Witthaya School in Phang Nga Province, southern Thailand.
Dr. Michael J. Montesano
Tel: +65 6874 6798
Office: AS3 06-12
seamm@nus.edu.sg
PhD (History) Cornell University, 1998
MA (History) Cornell University, 1992
MS (Agricultural Economics ) Cornell University, 1992
Dipl. Agr. (Crop Production) University of the Philippines at Los Baños, 1987
BA (History) Yale University, 1983
My exposure to rural Southeast Asia, its farms, and its markets dates from 1983,when I began two years of service as United States Peace Corps volunteer and secondary-school teacher at the Thap Put Witthaya School in Phang Nga Province, southern Thailand. After a wonderful year in "ag school" at the University of the Philippines at Los Los Baˆos, I returned home to New York State to study agricultural economics and then Southeast Asian history at Cornell. For the past decade, my research has concentrated above all on the history of business, society, and the Chinese community in Trang, southern Thailand. I try to return to the Thai South twice a year, both to see old friends and to chase down interesting documents and stories. I am also interested in the contemporary politics of Southeast Asia and in the relationship between this region and the United States. Since arriving at NUS in 1999, I have taught courses on the social and economic history of Southeast Asia and on the history of rural people in Southeast Asia. I am now working, both through teaching and through research, on new approaches to the history of business history in Southeast Asia.
TEACHING AREAS:
Southeast Asian Social and Economic History
Thailand
Peasantry and Agrarian Society in Southeast Asia
Introductory Module in Southeast Asian Studies
CURRENT RESEARCH:
Development of Commercial Banking in Provincial Thailand
Spatial Dimensions of Modern Thai History
Social and Commercial History of Southern Thailand during the Twentieth Century
Firms and Networks in Southeast Asian Business History
Role of the United States in Southeast Asia
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:
'Market Society and the New Thai Politics', pp. 97-122 in Ruth McVey, ed., Money and Power in Provincial Thailand (Copenhagen , 2000).
'Left Behind by the Boom: Chinese Merchants in Provincial Thailand in the Era of Rapid
Economic Growth', pp. 137-168 in Tong Chee Kiong and Chan Kwok Bun, eds., Alternate Identities: The Chinese of Contemporary Thailand (Singapore, 2001).
'Thailand in 2001: Learning to Live with Thaksin', Asian Survey XLII, 1 (January/February 2002): 90-99.
'The Philippines in 2002: Playing Politics, Facing Deficits, and Embracing Uncle Sam', Asian Survey XLII, 1 (January/February 2003): 156-166.
'The United States in Southeast Asia: Deepening the Rut?' (with Quek Ser Hwee), forthcoming in Orbis (Spring 2004).
