Opposing Democracy in the Digital Age: The Yellow Shirts in Thailand By Aim Sinpeng. Routledge, 2021. 270 pages. Hardback, $75.00, ISBN: 9780472132355. Paper book, $29.95, ISBN: 9780472038480. Ebook, $29.95, ISBN: 9780472128563

arguments feel weakened by not only the uncharacteristic lack of clarity and images (which scenes in Game of Thrones?), but objections immediately spring to mind. Any fan of horror can easily recall scenes of a camera swivelling across a quill etching out some demonic contract, Danny Torrance scratching out “redrum” on a door in childish strokes of lipstick, or some hapless victim scrawling a final message in blood. While some of these may not be calligraphy in the traditional sense, they are all akin to acts that Brushed in Light recognizes as calligraphic in East Asian cinema. I similarly doubt that someone can watch an entire period piece film or TV show set in the premodern area without at least one shot of an aristocrat sitting down to put quill to paper. At the very least, the parodic use in Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes to mind. Importantly, beyond just being potentially specious, the forced separation here prevents the book from communicating with deep analytical celebrations of calligraphy outside of Asia like Florey’s Script and Scribble (2009) or Trubek’s The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting (2016). This bounds the book’s final claims about the humanistic, cinematographic, and artistic importance of written acts to a specific geographic region in a way that feels artificial, unnecessary, and heavily limiting. Indeed, it even seems in some ways contradictory to the text’s own opening forays against conservative definitions of calligraphy and “East Asia” as static constructs. Ultimately though, these two critiques are in many ways personal reflections of what I – as someone outside the field and the book’s construction – wanted to see the book expand upon and discuss. Neither of my critiques are so large that I would hesitate to recommend this book to almost anyone, and neither prevent the text from being a rousing success at what it sets out to do. Rather, I just feel that the book provides data and arguments that can be used by a broad range of scholars and fields, but unfortunately limits its framing to prevent advertising this potential as well as it could. No critique I have outlined changes the fact that Brushed in Light opens an understudied and overlooked world to a broad audience in a way which is immediately grasping, visually stunning, and highly accessible. The ultimate result is a text that ensures any reader with an interest in cinema, writing, or Asian Studies as a field can enjoy the experience. Without a doubt, they will absolutely find some arguments, data, images, or just clever turns of phrase that will be of use to their own work. The book may not end with conclusions as daring as I think it could, but it accomplishes every goal it sets forth with aplomb, and provides an incredibly original reminder that there is always something human, social, and artistic behind a written act.