Thongchai Winichakul
In Tearing Apart the Land, Duncan McCargo articulates a convincing explanation of the crisis in Thailand's Malay Muslim region with conceptual and analytical clarity. He also boldly offers a direction to the solution and the reasons why it is very difficult for the Thai state to embrace this solution. The book may set a new basis for the discussion on this crisis and its solution for some time to come.
Michael G. Peletz
Tearing Apart the Land is an engaging and well-crafted addition to the literature on Islam, politico-religious movements, southern Thailand, and Southeast Asia generally. Duncan McCargo's extensive familiarity with the region and his many interviews with southern Thais from all walks of life give his account a great deal of authority. His book is a 'must read' for anyone seriously interested in understanding contemporary dynamics in Thailand's southern provinces, how they came to be, and what might be done to establish a solution that is acceptable to the key players in the region, including, not least, the ordinary Muslims who make up the (oftentimes but not always) 'silent majority.'.
Kevin Hewison
If you read just one book on Thailand's turbulent south, it must be Duncan McCargo's Tearing Apart the Land. Built on months of potentially dangerous fieldwork, McCargo's book will set the benchmark against which all future studies of the south will be measured. McCargo's intelligent and informed analysis unravels a remarkably complex social, political, religious, and cultural environment to provide an account that does not diminish this complexity but which provides a series of prisms—Islam, politics, security, and militants—that allow us to better understand it. Tearing Apart the Land is an excellent book that tells us much about the separatist conflict in Southern Thailand and also provides invaluable insights into national politics in Thailand. This is essential reading.