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H.R.H. Prince , and half, until it finally fell to the Bur- A Biography of King the mese again, in 1767. Even if we account Great, translated and edited by Kennon for the demise of First Toungoo Burma Breazeale. and Samutprakan: on the basis mainly of internal adminis- Toyota Foundation and the trative problems that gradually deprived Foundation for the Promotion of Social the royal center of resources, or forced Science and Humanities Textbooks it to overdraw those it did possess, it Project, 2008, xxxiii+213 pp., maps, was Naresuan’s constant pressure that illustrations, notes, bibliography, index steadily whittled away at those forces ISBN 978-974-06-9716-9, Bt.600. the Burmese were able to muster. The reign of Naresuan thus fully merits the This is a multi-layered book and will attention given it. be interesting and useful to different On another level, the book is interest- audiences for different reasons. At face ing as an example of the hobby interests value, A Biography of King Naresuan of the original author, Prince Damrong the Great is a historical account of the (1862–1943), one of the chief architects great warrior king Naresuan. Naresuan, of the modern Thai state and one of the by pulling Ayutthaya together after its most prominent Thai intellectuals of collapse and submission to the Burmese the twentieth century. A son of King in the 1560s and reversing the king- (r. 1851–1868), Prince Dam- dom’s military fortunes in its struggles rong played an important role in devel- with the Burmese probably has a place oping the administrative underpinnings similar to that held by the warrior king of the court-dominated state, a role that Alaunghpaya (r. 1752–1760) among led to his ten-year exile (1932–1942) the Burmese for his military successes from Thailand to the island of against the court of Pegu in the 1752– (then part of the British Straits Settle- 1757 period. Naresuan, known as ‘the ments) after the 1932 coup ended royal Black Prince’ in some Western accounts, absolutism. It was technically during personally led the armies of Ayutthaya this exile that Prince Damrong pro- on horse and elephant, pushing the duced this book, but Prince Damrong’s Burmese invaders back over the moun- fascination with, research on, and pub- tains. Naresuan even twice took his own lications about Naresuan were already forces into Burma, first to besiege Pegu in place long before the coup. One of in 1596 and then again, after Pegu fell, his most significant efforts, including to besiege Toungoo in 1600. By revers- substantial material on Naresuan, for ing Ayutthaya’s military fortunes and example, saw published form in ‘Our leading the transition from a defensive Wars with the Burmese: Thai-Burmese strategy to an offensive campaign, Nare- Conflict 1539–1767’, serialized in the suan in a very short time guaranteed Journal of the fifteen Ayutthaya’s survival for over a century years earlier (and recently republished

Journal of the Siam Society 2009 Vol. 97 232 Reviews by White Lotus). Moreover, one year study by Prince Damrong into English, before his exile, Prince Damrong had Breazeale has included an introduction overseen the production of wall paint- (pp. xvi-xvii), extensive historical notes ings on Naresuan’s life at the Wat (pp. 129–166), and the aforementioned Suwandararam (these paintings are section on the Wat Suwandararam wall reproduced in a special section of the paintings. The notes are well researched present book, pp. 167–183). The present and provide necessary explanation study is certainly a window to Prince where Prince Damrong did not. The Damrong’s insights on the Thai past, but old controversy regarding details of one that provides important glimpses at the manner of death of Burmese King the complicated balance the man had Nandabayin’s (r. 1581–1599) crown to maintain between his administrative prince who was in the midst of doing burdens and his passion for historical battle with Naresuan, for example, is research, a tension made clear in discussed at length (pp. 149–150), iden- occasional passages put forward rather tifying important sources contributing to bluntly in Prince Damrong’s own words the emergence of conflicting accounts, (pp. 120–121). Adding to this particular clearly marking out the trail for read- element of the book, Prince Damrong’s ers with further interest in the episode intellectual contributions, the publishers to follow. As a result, the value of the have also issued an accompanying text, publication for researchers on Thai and entitled The Writing of Prince Damrong Burmese history during the period has Rajanubhad: A Chronology with Anno- been increased substantially. tations, also compiled, annotated, and Finally, the volume offers both a introduced by Breazeale. study of warfare during the period and With the study’s translation into an example of the place of warfare in English, the translator and editor Dr Thai intellectual history during Prince Kennon Breazeale (East-West Center, Damrong’s own lifetime. Prince Dam- Hawaii) provides another layer. Brea- rong’s eyes do not focus on the nitty- zeale is a leading expert on early modern gritty of combat, but he does a fair Thai and Lao history during the period job of showing us the role played by and has produced several works on Naresuan (and thus by the elites gener- the subject. Most relevant here are an ally) and his commanders in warfare. article by Breazeale, ‘A Transition in Some of the more interesting details are Historical Writing: The Works of Prince those regarding the strategy and tactics Damrong Rachanuphap’, published attributed by Prince Damrong to Nare- in the Journal of the Siam Society in suan in the latter’s successful defense 1971 (vol. 59, no. 2) and his translation of Ayutthaya against Nandabayin in of Prince Damrong’s Journey through 1586-1587 (pp. 53–60). In Prince Dam- Burma in 1936 (Bangkok, River Books, rong’s account of his own role in dis- 1991). Beyond rendering the present covering the that commemorated

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Naresuan’s combat on elephant back, so admirably succeeded in translating provided in the present translation as for a broader audience. a separate appendix (pp. 120–128), he notes that Naresuan followed an Michael W. Charney example included in the Sri Lankan chronicle, the Mahavamsa. Naresuan, in building the stupa, was consciously imitating the act of a Sinhalese king eighteen hundred years earlier after the latter’s victory over a Tamil invader (p. 125). Further, the images included in the appendix devoted to the Wat Suwandararam paintings reflect the vision of Prince Damrong’s own time of warfare centuries earlier, and not direct evidence of the conduct and technol- ogy of earlier warfare. Nevertheless, they provide us with evidence of how warfare was being re-imagined at that time just before Thailand moved toward the heightened militarism of the 1930s and early 1940s. The volume thus is a welcome contribution to a growing body of work on warfare in the region in the early modern period and its place in the intellectual history of twentieth century Thailand. Presented in fluid, intelligently for- mulated prose, A Biography of King Naresuan the Great is recommended for both general audiences interested in Southeast Asian history and for specialists in the , Burma, and warfare in Southeast Asia generally. It should be of great interest even to those with access to earlier Thai- language versions of Prince Damrong’s work as the present edition offers much more that makes its reading indispensa- ble to understanding the core study it has

Journal of the Siam Society 2009 Vol. 97