ชาติ transcended cultural and social boundaries and its members were unified by devotion to monarchy and shared religion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The importance of enemies
Two symbolic enemies were promulgated:
External – the Burmese – Thai Rop Pamah
Internal – the Chinese – “the Jews of Asia”
The idea of “race” – W.C. Dodd’s historical speculations in The Thai Race (1923) were the basis for nationalistic histories such as Wichitmat’s Lak Thai (หลักไทย)(1928) and Wichit Wathakan’s Prawatisat Sakon (ประวัติศาสตร์สากล)(1930)