Village Life in Modern Thailand by John E. deYoung provides a vivid descriptive account of Thai rural society beyond the Bangkok delta plain, covering the north, northeast, and much of the central and southern regions. Based on nearly three years of first-hand fieldwork, including an intensive social study of a northern village, deYoung reconstructs the daily activities, economic patterns, and family life of peasants who still live in compact village units and practice a largely self-sufficient rice economy supplemented by secondary crops and small cash earnings. His narrative emphasizes continuities and gradual changes over the past half century, offering readers an accessible portrait of how ordinary Thai villagers live and work.

While deliberately excluding the lower Menam Plain—where commercial rice cultivation has transformed village life—deYoung situates his observations against broader national patterns. He contrasts the self-subsistent communities he studied with the highly monetized villages of the delta, where intensive rice exports underpin the nation’s economy and social structures have shifted toward dispersed farmsteads and market dependence. Avoiding the heavy statistical analyses of earlier surveys, the book instead presents a synoptic, human-centered picture intended for both scholars and general readers. By capturing both tradition and transition in rural Thailand, Village Life in Modern Thailand remains a valuable contribution to Southeast Asian studies and a window onto the everyday world of the majority of the Thai people in the mid-twentieth century.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1955.

Contributor: John E. deYoung Enter the Author Bio(s) here.