Wasana Wongsurawat. The Crown and the Capitalists: The Ethnic Chinese and the Founding of the Thai Nation.

Abstract

Wasana Wongsurawat’s The Crown and the Capitalists: The Ethnic Chinese and the Founding of the Thai Nation reexamines Thai narratives of modernization, the process by which a feudal kingdom was transformed into a nation-state. Conventional histories of Thailand credit the monarchy for the country’s development, depicting the king either as an astute diplomat fending of Western intervention or an internal colonizer imitating European models of state building. Cold War historiography explains Thai history as a journey, in fits and starts, toward the elusive goal of liberal democracy. The Crown and the Capitalists makes an important contribution to this scholarship by adopting a transnational approach, focusing on both the country’s long-standing relationship with China and the sizable Chinese diaspora within its borders. As the title suggests, the book is centered on the uneasy partnership between royal elites and the immigrant community of Chinese businessmen, which Wasana argues is the key to understanding the historical trajectory of the Thai nation-state. In so doing, the author seeks to create space for Chinese immigrant voices within the story of Thai modernization.