An important book on late-nineteenth-century Thailand. Smyth spent some years in Thailand as director of the Department of Mines, and his well-illustrated account of the country, then under the rule of King Chulalongkorn, describes the prosperous last years free of colonial controls. 'Thailand presented a singular contrast to the rest of Southeast Asia in the late nineteenth century. Thai leaders followed policies that revealed a remarkable capacity to gain the greatest benefit from the new and intrusive element of European power' (Osborne, Southeast Asia).

An important book on late-nineteenth-century Thailand. Smyth spent some years in Thailand as director of the Department of Mines, and his well-illustrated account of the country, then under the rule of King Chulalongkorn, describes the prosperous last years free of colonial controls. 'Thailand presented a singular contrast to the rest of Southeast Asia in the late nineteenth century. Thai leaders followed policies that revealed a remarkable capacity to gain the greatest benefit from the new and intrusive element of European power' (Osborne, Southeast Asia).

Within only a few years Thailand was to lose part of its country to French colonial aspirations, and in 1909 it lost four Malay states to the British.