On the Edge of the Banda Zone

On the Edge of the Banda Zone
Author: Roy Ellen
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2003-08-31
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780824826765

The impact of the Indonesian spice trade on global and, more particularly, European history has been widely acknowledged. Although more recent studies have gone beyond the preoccupation with the colonial relationship to provide a more "Asiacentric" view, On the Edge of the Banda Zone is the first to focus an anthropological lens on the dynamics of trade in a specific area: that incorporating the Seram Laut and Gorom archipelagoes (and the adjacent mainland) of east Seram, in the Moluccas. The point of departure for Roy Ellen's analysis is a description of trade relations in the east Seram zone between 1970 and 1990, but the wider importance of the data presented here is readily apparent: For five hundred years (and probably much longer), it has served as a corridor between Eurasia and the southwestern Pacific and played a vital role in the production and distribution of nutmeg and other high-value commodities that have for centuries had an impact on the global economy. Drawing on the author’s fieldwork as well as archival and secondary sources, this ambitious, eclectic volume demonstrates the enduring continuities in the local system as it comes into contact with the changing outside world. It illuminates how barter, ecological and ethnic divisions of labor, exchange patterns, and the organization of trade between the peoples of the New Guinea coast and east Seram, help us make sense of long-term cycles and trends.

The Revolt of Prince Nuku

The Revolt of Prince Nuku
Author: Muridan Satrio Widjojo
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2009
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004172017

During the period of the Dutch East India Company's rule of the Spice Islands, Prince Nuku of Tidore stands out as the local hero who opposed the VOC's oppressive trade monopoly. This study analyzes how he succeeded in regaining independence for the Sultanate of Tidore by creating an alliance with the English and his Malukan and Papuan adherents.

The Nutmeg's Curse

The Nutmeg's Curse
Author: Amitav Ghosh
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2022-09-07
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0226823954

In this ambitious successor to The Great Derangement, acclaimed writer Amitav Ghosh finds the origins of our contemporary climate crisis in Western colonialism’s violent exploitation of human life and the natural environment. A powerful work of history, essay, testimony, and polemic, Amitav Ghosh’s new book traces our contemporary planetary crisis back to the discovery of the New World and the sea route to the Indian Ocean. The Nutmeg’s Curse argues that the dynamics of climate change today are rooted in a centuries-old geopolitical order constructed by Western colonialism. At the center of Ghosh’s narrative is the now-ubiquitous spice nutmeg. The history of the nutmeg is one of conquest and exploitation—of both human life and the natural environment. In Ghosh’s hands, the story of the nutmeg becomes a parable for our environmental crisis, revealing the ways human history has always been entangled with earthly materials such as spices, tea, sugarcane, opium, and fossil fuels. Our crisis, he shows, is ultimately the result of a mechanistic view of the earth, where nature exists only as a resource for humans to use for our own ends, rather than a force of its own, full of agency and meaning. Writing against the backdrop of the global pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, Ghosh frames these historical stories in a way that connects our shared colonial histories with the deep inequality we see around us today. By interweaving discussions on everything from the global history of the oil trade to the migrant crisis and the animist spirituality of Indigenous communities around the world, The Nutmeg’s Curse offers a sharp critique of Western society and speaks to the profoundly remarkable ways in which human history is shaped by non-human forces.

Exile in Colonial Asia

Exile in Colonial Asia
Author: Ronit Ricci
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2016-05-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 082485375X

Exile was a potent form of punishment and a catalyst for change in colonial Asia between the seventeenth and early twentieth centuries. Vast networks of forced migration supplied laborers to emerging colonial settlements, while European powers banished rivals to faraway locations. Exile in Colonial Asia explores the phenomenon of exile in ten case studies by way of three categories: “kings,” royals banished as political exiles; “convicts,” the vast majority of those whose lives are explored in this volume, sent halfway across the world with often unexpected consequences; and “commemoration,” referring to the myriad ways in which the experience and its aftermath were remembered by those exiled, relatives left behind, colonial officials, and subsequent generations of descendants, devotees, historians, and politicians. Intended for a broad readership interested in the colonial period in Asia (South and Southeast Asia in particular), the volume encompasses a range of disciplinary perspectives: anthropology, gender studies, literature, history, and Asian, Australian, and Pacific studies. In addition to presenting fascinating, little-known, and varied case studies of exile in colonial Asia and Australia, the chapters collectively offer a sweeping, contextualized, comparative approach that links the narratives of diverse peoples and locales. Rather than confining research to the European colonial archives, whenever possible the authors put special emphasis on the use of indigenous primary sources hitherto little explored. Exile in Colonial Asia invites imaginative methodological innovation in exploring multiple archives and expands our theoretical frontiers in thinking about the interconnected histories of penal deportation, labor migration, political exile, colonial expansion, and individual destinies.

In Asian Waters

In Asian Waters
Author: Eric Tagliacozzo
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 512
Release: 2022-07-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691235643

A sweeping account of how the sea routes of Asia have transformed a vast expanse of the globe over the past five hundred years, powerfully shaping the modern world In the centuries leading up to our own, the volume of traffic across Asian sea routes—an area stretching from East Africa and the Middle East to Japan—grew dramatically, eventually making them the busiest in the world. The result was a massive circulation of people, commodities, religion, culture, technology, and ideas. In this book, Eric Tagliacozzo chronicles how the seas and oceans of Asia have shaped the history of the largest continent for the past half millennium, leaving an indelible mark on the modern world in the process. Paying special attention to migration, trade, the environment, and cities, In Asian Waters examines the long history of contact between China and East Africa, the spread of Hinduism and Buddhism across the Bay of Bengal, and the intertwined histories of Islam and Christianity in the Philippines. The book illustrates how India became central to the spice trade, how the Indian Ocean became a “British lake” between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, and how lighthouses and sea mapping played important roles in imperialism. The volume ends by asking what may happen if China comes to rule the waves of Asia, as Britain once did. A novel account showing how Asian history can be seen as a whole when seen from the water, In Asian Waters presents a voyage into a past that is still alive in the present.

Slavery and Bondage in Asia, 1550–1850

Slavery and Bondage in Asia, 1550–1850
Author: Kate Ekama
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2022-12-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 3110777312

The study of slavery and coerced labour is increasingly conducted from a global perspective, and yet a dual Eurocentric bias remains: slavery primarily brings to mind the images of Atlantic chattel slavery, and most studies continue to be based – either outright or implicitly – on a model of northern European wage labour. This book constitutes an attempt to re-centre that story to Asia. With studies spanning the western Indian Ocean and the steppes of Central Asia to the islands of South East Asia and Japan, and ranging from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, this book tracks coercion in diverse forms, tracing both similarities and differences – as well as connections – between systems of coercion, from early sales regulations to post-abolition labour contracts. Deep empirical case studies, as well as comparisons between the chapters, all show that while coercion was entrenched in a number of societies, it was so in different and shifting ways. This book thus not only shows the history of slavery and coercion in Asia as a connected story, but also lays the groundwork for global studies of a phenomenon as varying, manifold and contested as coercion.

Octopus Crowd

Octopus Crowd
Author: Stephen Mullins
Publisher: University Alabama Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2019-08-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0817320245

A detailed study of the origins and demise of schooner-based pearling in Australia For most of its history, Australian pearling was a shore-based activity. But from the mid-1880s until the World War I era, the industry was dominated by highly mobile, heavily capitalized, schooner-based fleets of pearling luggers, known as floating stations, that exploited Australia’s northern continental shelf and the nearby waters of the Netherlands Indies. Octopus Crowd: Maritime History and the Business of Australian Pearling in Its Schooner Age is the first book-length study of schooner-based pearling and explores the floating station system and the men who developed and employed it. Steve Mullins focuses on the Clark Combination, a syndicate led by James Clark, Australia’s most influential pearler. The combination honed the floating station system to the point where it was accused of exhausting pearling grounds, elbowing out small-time operators, strangling the economies of pearling ports, and bringing the industry to the brink of disaster. Combination partners were vilified as monopolists—they were referred to as an “octopus crowd”—and their schooners were stigmatized as hell ships and floating sweatshops. Schooner-based floating stations crossed maritime frontiers with impunity, testing colonial and national territorial jurisdictions. The Clark Combination passed through four fisheries management regimes, triggering significant change and causing governments to alter laws and extend maritime boundaries. It drew labor from ports across the Asia-Pacific, and its product competed in a volatile world market. Octopus Crowd takes all of these factors into account to explain Australian pearling during its schooner age. It argues that the demise of the floating station system was not caused by resource depletion, as was often predicted, but by ideology and Australia’s shifting sociopolitical landscape

Early Modern East Asia

Early Modern East Asia
Author: Kenneth M. Swope
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2017-11-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1315282798

This book presents a great deal of new primary research on a wide range of aspects of early modern East Asia. Focusing primarily on maritime connections, the book explores the importance of international trade networks, the implications of technological dissemination, and the often unforeseen consequences of missionary efforts. It demonstrates the benefi ts of a global history approach, outlining the complex interactions between Western traders and Asian states and entrepreneurs. Overall, the book presents much interesting new material on this complicated and understudied period. .

Early Modern Southeast Asia, 1350-1800

Early Modern Southeast Asia, 1350-1800
Author: Ooi Keat Gin
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2015-10-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317559185

This book presents extensive new research findings on and new thinking about Southeast Asia in this interesting, richly diverse, but much understudied period. It examines the wide and well-developed trading networks, explores the different kinds of regimes and the nature of power and security, considers urban growth, international relations and the beginnings of European involvement with the region, and discusses religious factors, in particular the spread and impact of Christianity. One key theme of the book is the consideration of how well-developed Southeast Asia was before the onset of European involvement, and, how, during the peak of the commercial boom in the 1500s and 1600s, many polities in Southeast Asia were not far behind Europe in terms of socio-economic progress and attainments.

Formation and Applications of the Sedimentary Record in Arc Collision Zones

Formation and Applications of the Sedimentary Record in Arc Collision Zones
Author: Amy E. Draut
Publisher: Geological Society of America
Total Pages: 446
Release: 2008-01-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0813724368

"Inspired by a GSA Penrose Conference held in 2005 (cosponsored by the International Association of Sedimentologists and the British Sedimentological Research Group), the 17 papers in this volume explore sedimentary environments in arc collision zones and their utility in recording the evolution of modern and ancient convergent margins. The first set of papers in the collection focuses on formation and evolution of the sedimentary record in arc settings and arc collision zones, concentrating on modern intra-oceanic examples. Papers include studies of flexural modeling and factors that affect development of siliciclastic and carbonate deposits around modern arcs. The second half of the volume presents new applications of arc sedimentary records. These relate primarily to constraining tectonic events in the evolution of arc systems, but also concern the links among tectonic uplift, collision, and geomorphic and climatic feedback mechanisms in arc collision zones."--Publisher's website.