Modern Global Trade and the Asian Regional Economy (Monograph Series of the Socio-Economic History Society, Japan)

"This volume undertakes the important task of envisioning a regional history of Asia based on its unique internal characteristics, going beyond the usual West/non-West dichotomy. The "regional trade zone of modern Asia" was debated in the 1980s. Since then, Japanese historians of the socioeconomic history of Asia have explored how the traditional trade relations that had developed over the centuries in Asia responded to the so-called Western impacts in the mid-nineteenth century, including the opening of ports and tariff reduction under free trade regimes and the advance in transportation technology. Against this academic background, the four chapters in this volume examine how overseas Chinese, some of the key actors in regional and local trade, dealt with their Western counterparts, and how Asian commodities penetrated other parts of the world through the newly created web of global commerce. The book reviews discuss theoretical issues to explore various connections among and comparisons of the economies in the region. This volume provides readers with critical insights into the Asian region in the past and present by investigating the long-term trajectory of its linkages to the global economy"--Back cover Front Matter ....Pages i-xi Front Matter ....Pages 1-1 Dutch Bank Transactions with Chinese Traders in the Dutch East Indies: The Java Sugar Trade and the 1917 Sugar Crisis (Yuko Kudo)....Pages 3-31 The Growth of Intra-Southeast Asian Trade in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century: The Role of Middlemen in Singapore (Atsushi Kobayashi)....Pages 33-58 The British Atlantic Slave Trade and Indian Cotton Textiles: The Case of Thomas Lumley & Co. (Kazuo Kobayashi)....Pages 59-85 The Export of Indian Guinée to Senegal via France: Inter-colonial Trade in the Long Nineteenth Century (Toyomu Masaki)....Pages 87-115 Front Matter ....Pages 117-117 Review of Osamu Saitō, Hikaku Keizai Hattenron: Rekishiteki Apurōchi (Comparative Economic Development: A Historical Approach) (Ayumu Banzawa)....Pages 119-124 Review of Kaoru Sugihara, Kōhei Wakimura, Kōichi Fujita and Akio Tanabe (Eds.), Rekishi no Naka no Nettai Seizon Ken: Ontai Paradaimu Wo Koete (The Tropical Humanosphere in History—Beyond the “Temperate Zone” Paradigm) (Tsukasa Mizushima)....Pages 125-130 Review of Mario Ōshima (Ed.), Tochikishōka to Kinbenkakumei no Hikakushi—Keizaishi Jō no Kinsei (Land Scarcity and Industrious Revolutions—Comparative Studies on Early Modern Economies) (Ken’ichi Tomobe)....Pages 131-135 Review of Kazuko Furuta (Ed.), Chūgoku no Shijōchitsujo—17seiki Kara 20Seiki Zenhan Wo Chūshinni (Market Order in China—From the Seventeenth Until the First Half of the Twentieth Century) (Hajime Kose)....Pages 137-141 Back Matter ....Pages 143-145 Annotation This volume undertakes the important task of envisioning a regional history of Asia based on its unique internal characteristics, going beyond the usual West/non-West dichotomy. The "regional trade zone of modern Asia" was debated in the 1980s. Since then, Japanese historians of the socioeconomic history of Asia have explored how the traditional trade relations that had developed over the centuries in Asia responded to the so-called Western impacts in the mid-nineteenth century, including the opening of ports and tariff reduction under free trade regimes and the advance in transportation technology. Against this academic background, the four chapters in this volume examine how overseas Chinese, some of the key actors in regional and local trade, dealt with their Western counterparts, and how Asian commodities penetrated other parts of the world through the newly created web of global commerce. The book reviews discuss theoretical issues to explore various connections among and comparisons of the economies in the region. This volume provides readers with critical insights into the Asian region in the past and present by investigating the long-term trajectory of its linkages to the global economy