PROFESSOR TAMARA LOOS
Who was Prince Prisdang Chumsai and why did you decide to write a biography about his life?
Prince Prisdang, who lived from 18521935, was the first Siamese (Thai) royal family member to obtain a university degree abroad (King’s College, London, in 1876), and went on to become Siam’s first diplomat to most countries in Europe in the 1880s. He served as Siam’s ambassador to the world’s dominant global powers during the most dramatic moment of Siam’s history, when its independence was threatened by European imperialism. In the 1880s France threatened Siam’s independence from the east, where it finalised its conquest
