Information about the author of the book "History of Laos", available below, is provided here. This may help readers to better evaluate the contents of the book.
"Sila Viravong (or Maha Sila Viravongs) is a Laos historian, philologist, teacher of Pali, modernizer of the Lao alphabet who was a great intellectual figure of Laotian independence during the struggles against French rule by actively activating within of the Lao Issara movement with which he went into exile in Thailand in 1946. He was the personal secretary of Prince Phetsarath (January 10, 1889 - October 1, 1959). His name is often preceded by the honorary title Maha and he is often named with this title as "Maha Sila".
He is the father of the Laotian writer, intellectual and publisher Douangdeuane Bounyavong.
Coming from a family of cultivators from Champassak, Sila Viravong was born on August 1, 1905 in the province of Roi-Et (in Thai: ร้อยเอ็ด) located in the middle of the Isan country in Thailand. Entered young in the orders as bonzillon at the pagoda of the village, he is initiated very early in the Tham and Lao alphabet engraved on the leaves of the latanier of the manuscripts on oles. The young monk falls in love with Lao history and literature that survived in the pagodas of this province conquered by the Siamese in the late 18th century from the ancient Lao kingdom, the weakened and divided Lane Xang. When he takes off the robe, he leaves to study Pali in Bangkok. In 1929, he became the secretary of the Laotian Prince Phetsarath Rattanavongsa, leader of Lao nationalism during the French tutelage. He joined the “National Renovation Movement”, founded in 1940 by young Laotian intellectuals (chaperoned by France, which saw in this strategy a way of maintaining its influence in the country). He joined the independence movement Lao Issara (literally "free Laos") after the attempted takeover of French Indochina by Japan (March 9, 1945 to August 1945). When France took over Laos in 1946, he followed the members of Lao Issara in exile in Bangkok where he undertook scholarly research at the National Library of Thailand.
He returned to Laos in 1949 where he became professor of Pali at the Buddhist Institute of Chanthaboury (in Vientiane).
He married in Vientiane with Nang Maly. Among their fourteen children, Douangdeuane married the writer Outhine Bounyavong. Although retired since 1963, after the proclamation of the Lao People's Democratic Republic in 1975, he was appointed expert to the Ministry of National Education. He continued teaching, research and counseling literary activities until his death in February 1987.
In the 1930s, Sila Viravong opposed the Latinization of Lao writing. He worked to modernize the Lao alphabet, in particular to make it more phonetic. He wrote a new Lao grammar and a dictionary. He also proposed a system for transcribing the Pali language into modern Lao characters to facilitate the chanted reading of prayers in pagodas. This transcription is still in use.
As a Pali teacher at the Buddhist Institute, he wrote a manual for learning Pali.
He is the author of the first textbook on the History of Laos published by the Ministry of National Education of Laos.
Concerned about astrology, he designed a Lao calendar used in conjunction with other foreign calendars.
As an active militant of the Lao Issara movement, he participated in the act of independence of October 12, 1945 as well as in the design of the national flag.
Among his works only his Histoire du Laos (Phongsavadane lao, 1957), based on the Chronicles of Lane Xang, and his biography of Prince Phetsarath (published posthumously) have been the subject of a French translation. If he was indeed a prominent figure in the reconstruction of Lao national identity, by their lack of scientific rigor in the method and their nationalist bias, the works of Maha Sila now have only a historiographical interest."
(translated by Google Translate from French language Wikipedia)