Prajadhipok - Legacy

Legacy

Among the recent Chakri monarchs, particularly Chulalongkorn and Bhumibol, Prajadhipok emerged with relatively little revisionistic detraction. He was a hard-working, effective administrator who was intellectually equal to the demands of his office, and whose main failing was to underestimate the Bangkok elite's growing need for change. As late as his death in exile, many, as the historian David K. Wyatt puts it, "would have agreed with his judgement that a move towards democracy in 1932 was premature."