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Extraterritoriality was not a disadvantage for the Siamese ruling class and King Vajiravudh’s (Rama VI) royalist nationalism was not anti-Chinese. These are but two of the many controversial arguments in "The Crown and the Capitalists", a book that sets out to explain how the ethnic Chinese were actually at the fundamental core of the founding of the Thai nation-state. It engages the trans-national history of Thailand from the colonial period to the conclusion of the Cold War, not only from the perspective of the Thai state, but also from that of the colonial powers, the ethnic Chinese community, and the various Chinese states involved throughout the period.