Eric Tagliacozzo

This isn't a text one reads cover to cover as it consists of a number of essays divided into various categories: Theoretical, Precolonial, Early Colonial, High Colonial, and Post Colonial. Having dipped into the book as a whole and having read about half of the essays (obviously those I found immediately relevant), I can recommend the book as a very useful addition to anyone with a serious historical interest in Southeast Asia.

Anthony Reid's chapter on the "Chinese on the Mining Frontier in Southeast Asia" covers a topic not well-known but incredibly important in the region's history as SEA was a major global tin source and exporter (together with gold, iron and copper). It was the Chinese miners, however, brought into the region with their expertise of mining techniques and production that enabled the Straits Settlements to export 7,919 tons per annum in 1864-1869 (p. 32). "In 1879, Malaya surpassed Cornwall and Australia to become the world's largest tin producer, and soon thereafter produced more than the rest of the world combined, a position that Southeast Asian producers retain today." (p. 32) The price paid, however, was high in terms of disease and work conditions. A fascinating chapter.

Carl Trocki's essay on "Opium as a Commodity in the Chinese Nanyang Trade" will interest anyone interested in the history of the drug and provides a number of surprises. Here are three: that it was the Dutch who introduced opium to Taiwan that contributed to its arrival in China, that it was the early western countries who introduced the idea of smoking (tobacco) to Asia that enabled opium consumption to move from its being swallowed to being inhaled, and that "Singapore became the center of the Chinese economy of Southeast Asia and of the opium trade" (p. 93) serving as a major opium centre due to its large numbers of coolie labourers who were introduced to opium while in the Straits Colonies who then returned home to China with the habit. "It was arguably in Southeast Asia, not in China itself, that opium use first took hold among lower-class Chinese" (p. 89).

And Takeshi Hamashita's contribution on the "Ryukyu Maritime Tributary Trade Network with China and Southeast Asia" in the 14-17C reminds readers of the very central role the Ryukyan Islands played as a commercial trading post, enhanced by its special relationships with both Japan and China, which contributed to the 14-17C being "one of the most prosperous in the history of the Ryukyu Kingdom" (p. 108). I recently visited Okinawa's Prefectural Museum and the remains of Shurijo Castle and can attest to the role this island chain once played commercially and culturally. The black cloud that descends upon hearing the very name 'Okinawa' has made the world forget that the Ryukyu Kingdom once profited from its unique geographical location before it became a stepping stone for the Allies in WW2.

The three samples above give an idea of the richness of the content to be found in this excellent volume but please, next edition, let us hope the publisher includes more maps and a few more illustrations. A picture is worth 1,000 words, even in an academic book.… (altro)