<p>The eighteenth century witnessed the rise of the China market and the changes that resulted in global consumption patterns, from opium smoking to tea drinking. In a valuable transnational perspective, Leonard Blussé chronicles the economic and cultural transformations in East Asia through three key cities. Canton was the port of call for foreign merchants in the Qing empire. Nagasaki was the official port of Tokugawa Japan. Batavia served as the connection site between the Indian Ocean and China seas for ships of the Dutch East India Company.</p>
<p>The effects of global change were wrenching. The monopolies suffered challenges, trade corridors shifted, and new players appeared. Yankee traders in their fast clipper ships made great inroads. As Dutch control declined, Batavia lost its premier position. Nagasaki became a shadow of its former self. Canton, however, surged to become the foremost port of East Asia. But on the horizon were new kinds of port cities, not controlled from above and more attuned to the needs of the overseas trading network. With the establishment of the free port of Singapore and the rise of the treaty ports―Hong Kong, Shanghai, Yokohama―the nature of the China seas trade, and relations between East Asia and the West, changed forever.</p>

Visible Cities: Canton, Nagasaki, and Batavia and the Coming of the Americans (The Edwin O. Reischauer Lectures)

Business & Money

Leonard Blussé

International

Harvard University Press

The walled city of Batavia, today's downtown Jakarta, is chiefly remembered as the tropical deathpit, where the Dutch defiantly struggled to preserve a life style of brick houses and canals transplanted from the home country.

This misleading stereotype masks the fascinating world of a colonial settlement, whose citizens of different ethnic origins coexisted in the shadow of the almighty Dutch East India Company ( Verinigde Oost-Indische Compagnie - VOC )

The heroes of this study, the Chinese settlers and the mestizo (Eurasian) wives of the Hollanders, stand out within this plural society : they played indispensable roles in the upkeep of Batavia, and yet both were objects of mockery and ridicule to contemporary western observers.

How their lot came to be tied up to the interests of the VOC is shown in this collection of essays, in which new light is thrown on such wide ranging topics as the introduction of Chinese currency to the Archipelago, the origins of the Chinese massacre of 1740, the junk trade to China, and the central place of mestizo women in the early history of the town.

The tragic biographies of a Chinese towkay and a Batavian widow reveal how profoundly the VOC affected the individual lives of its Batavian subjects.

Strange Company: Chinese Settlers, Mestizo Women and Dutch in VOC Batavia (KITLV Verhandelingen Ser No, 122)

Foris Publications

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Leonard Blussé. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Leonard Blussé

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Leonard Blussé. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Visible Cities: Canton, Nagasaki, and Batavia and the Coming of the Americans (The Edwin O. Reischauer Lectures)

Strange Company: Chinese Settlers, Mestizo Women and Dutch in VOC Batavia (KITLV Verhandelingen Ser No, 122)