{"product_id":"9798996782703","title":"The Snake and the Farmer: Cambodia and the Balance of Dignity","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn November 2025, artillery fire along the Cambodian-Thai border displaced more than 80,000 people from their homes. Families who believed they would return in days found themselves waiting in temporary shelters, unable to reach the land they belonged to. The temple of Preah Vihear, a sacred site standing for nearly a thousand years, bore the marks of shelling. A war that was never formally named had changed lives that would never be the same. The Snake and the Farmer: Cambodia and the Balance of Dignity is a Cambodian voice thinking with other Cambodians about the choices this moment demands. Drawing on Cambodia's long inheritance-the civilization that built Angkor, the centuries of adaptation between larger neighbors, the devastating years of the Khmer Rouge, and the patient work of reconstruction-S. D. Meach examines what dignity requires of a small nation navigating a dangerous world. At the center of the book is an old Cambodian parable about a farmer who finds a snake stiff with cold and warms it inside his coat. When the snake revives, it bites him. The story is often told as a warning about naïveté. Meach hears it differently-as a question about what kind of nation Cambodia chooses to be in the presence of danger. The book explores four possible paths for Cambodia's future: a stronger alignment with the United States, a deepening of the existing partnership with China, a carefully balanced engagement with multiple powers, and the difficult possibility that the border may harden into permanent division. Each path contains snakes. Each requires warmth offered with open eyes. The Snake and the Farmer is not a policy brief. It is a work of political philosophy and moral witness, written for Cambodians, the diaspora, and anyone paying serious attention to one of Southeast Asia's most consequential crossroads.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ingram Book Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52502548742375,"sku":"Southeast Asia","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0724\/3680\/9959\/files\/9798996782703-us.jpg?v=1787250642","url":"https:\/\/jfbooks.org\/zh-hans\/products\/9798996782703","provider":"JF Books | 季風書園","version":"1.0","type":"link"}