Search results for ""Author G Roger Knight""

Book SynopsisDiscusses the complexities of a trading network in this period, outling commodity chains, links between colonies and colonial centres, and tensions between local polities and competing empires. This book explores European mercantile activity in Southeast Asia at a time when trade in this part of the world was being transformed and extended much more widely. Based on extensive original research including in newly discovered archives, the book reveals, through the study of one particular merchant and his extensive network, how trade in the region worked. It outlines the activities of Gillian Maclaine, a young Scottish "adventurer" (his word) who came to the region in about 1816 and established an enduring business in Batavia (present day Jakarta), trading in cotton goods and coffee, and later in opium. It examines the multi-faceted nature of such a trading network, including the wide scope of commodity chains, the associated link between colony and colonial metropole, and the many tensions between colonial powers, in this case the Dutch and the British, and with local polities. The book demonstratesthat Southeast Asian maritime trade was every bit as important to European worldwide commercial networks as the trade with India and China, which have been much more extensively studied, and it contributes to current scholarly debates about western imperialism, colonialism and the nature of empire. G. Roger Knight is an Associate Professor in the School of History and Politics in the University of Adelaide. He has published three previous books and numerous journal articles on the economic and social history of Southeast Asia.Trade ReviewAn elegantly written, handsomely produced volume [that] deserves a wide readership amongst business, imperial, global and Asian historians. * HISTORY *[An] empirically rich and analytically nuanced study [and] a valuable read for anyone who is interested in global histories of material circulation and exchange. * JOURNAL OF THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA *Knight offers an entrepreneur with real flesh and blood, whose fortunes were shaped as much by deep social and psychological motivations, religious and ethnic affiliations, personal relationships, and even marriage, as they were by dry, rational calculation. Knight makes business history accessible and enjoyable for audiences frequently daunted by the subject. * JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY HISTORY *Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION: A SCOTS ÉMIGRÉ, IMPERIAL SYSTEMS AND GLOBAL COMMODITIES MACLAINE'S 'APPRENTICESHIP': THE CITY OF LONDON AND THE COTTON TRADE WITH ASIA, 1816-1820 A 'SCOTCH ADVENTURER': BATAVIA, COFFEE AND COLONIAL WARS, 1820-1827 THE PIVOTAL YEARS: 'MACLAINE WATSON', TREACHEROUS CHAINS, SICKNESS AND DEBT, 1827-1832 THE NETWORK TAKES SHAPE: CONNECTIONS, BUSINESS AND ASSOCIATES, 1832-1840 CONCLUSION: MACLAINE'S LEGACY, COMMODITIES AND TRADE ON A COLONIAL 'PERIPHERY', 1840-1964 Bibliography

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Book Synopsis Sugar was the single most valuable bulk commodity traded internationally before oil became the world’s prime resource. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, cane sugar production was pre-eminent in the Atlantic Islands, the Caribbean, and Brazil. Subsequently, cane sugar industries in the Americas were transformed by a fusion of new and old forces of production, as the international sugar economy incorporated production areas in Asia, the Pacific, and Africa. Sugar’s global economic importance and its intimate relationship with colonialism offer an important context for probing the nature of colonial societies. This book questions some major assumptions about the nexus between sugar production and colonial societies in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia, especially in the second (post-1800) colonial era.Trade Review “The book is an invaluable contribution to the study of the political economies of these regions and offers fresh perspectives on metropolis-colony interactions. It challenges the Euro/US-centric historiography…[it] introduces the reader to a variety of archival sources.” · The Newsletter of the International Institute for Asian StudiesTable of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction Sidney W. Mintz Chapter 2. Sugarlandia Revisited: Sugar and Colonialism in Asia and the Americas, 1800 to 1940, An Introduction Ulbe Bosma, Juan Giusti-Cordero and G. Roger Knight Chapter 3. Technology, Technicians and Bourgeoisie: Thomas Jeoffries Edwards and the Industrial Project in Sugar in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Java G. Roger Knight Chapter 4. An Anatomy of Sugarlandia: Local Dutch Communities and the Colonial Sugar Industry in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Java Arthur van Schaik and G. Roger Knight Chapter 5. Sugar and Dynasty in Yogyakarta Ulbe Bosma Chapter 6. Hybridity, Colonial Capitalism and Indigenous Resistance: The Case of the Paku Alam in Central Java Sri Margana Chapter 7. ‘A Teaspoon of Sugar ...’: Assessing the Sugar Content in Colonial Discourse in the Dutch East Indies, 1880 to 1914 Joost Coté Chapter 8. Sugar, Slavery and Bourgeoisie: The Emergence of the Cuban Sugar Industry Manuel Barcia Chapter 9. The Spanish Immigrants in Cuba and Puerto Rico: Their Role in the Process of National Formation in the Twentieth Century (1898 to 1930) Jorge Ibarra Chapter 10. Compradors or Compadres? ‘Sugar Barons’ in Negros (The Philippines) and Puerto Rico under American Rule Juan Giusti-Cordero Notes on Contributors Bibliography Index

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