North from Malaya – William O. Douglas (1953) (1st ed) (signed)

S$145.00

North from Malaya – William O. Douglas (1953) (1st ed) (signed)

S$145.00

Title: North from Malaya

Author: William O. Douglas

Publisher: Doubleday & Company, New York, 1953. Stated first edition. Signed.

Condition: Hardcover, with price-clipped dust jacket wrapped in plastic. Signed by the author on half title page, with previous owner’s bookplate on ffep. Good, Slight tanning and foxing to edges. Text clean, binding tight, with black-and-white photographic plates. Back hinge and endpaper slightly torn near hinges. 352pp., app 8.5″x5.5″.

From jacket flap:

Asia is a battlefield of Russian Communism and democratic ideals; she is split by revolutions inspired, directed, and supported by the USSR. Justice William O. Douglas, a man whose interest and insight have won for him the esteem of a great American audience, visited and studies five of these crucial fronts in Asia. This is the fascinating account of what he discovered – what is going on inside Malaya, the Philippines, Indo-China, Burma, and Formosa. It is a revealing record of Communist revolutionary tactics, and a brilliant exposition of the only strategy by which Asia can stem the tide of Communism: the counterrevolution.

The Communist revolutionaries in Malaya, Indo-China, and the Philippines receive arms and ideals from Moscow. They strike at key men and positions, and then disappear into the jungles or the rice paddies, never exposing themselves to a superior force. The man hunt is the only means of tracking them down – a costly means. Justice Douglas believes that the guerrillas will never be wiped out until the people rise against them.

About the author (from Wikipedia):

William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898 – January 19, 1980) was an American jurist and politician who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Nominated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Douglas was confirmed at the age of 40, one of the youngest justices appointed to the court. His term, lasting 36 years and 209 days (1939–75), is the longest term in the history of the Supreme Court.