Changing Dynamics and Mechanisms of Maritime Asia in Comparative Perspectives

This book attempts to reveal historical dynamism of transforming contemporary Maritime Asia and to identify key driving forces or agencies for the evolution and transformation of Maritime Asia in the context of global history studies. It seeks to accomplish these goals by connecting different experiences in Maritime Asia both historically from the late early-modern to the present and spatially covering both East and Southeast Asia.

 

Focusing on interactions on and through oceans, seas, and islands, Maritime Asia can deal with any aspects of human society and the nature, including diplomacy, maritime trade, cultural exchange, identity and others.  Its interest in supra-regional interactions and networks, migration and diaspora, combined with its microscopic concern with local and trans-border affairs, will surely contribute to the common task of contemporary social sciences and humanities, to relativize the conventional framework based on the nation-state.In this regard, research in Maritime Asia claims to be an integral part of global studies.

Part I deals with long-distance trade and diplomatic relations during the late early modern era and its transition to the modern era, mainly in the nineteenth century.  Part II focuses on the emergence of transregional and trans-oceanic Asian networks and the original institution-building efforts in the Asia-Pacific region in the twentieth century.

Introduction.- Part I Maritime History during the Late Early-Modern and Modern Eras.- Surveying and Mapping the Japanese Archipelago in the 19^th Century.- The Rise of Silver Dollars: Changing pattern of silver use in 19^th century Vietnam.- The Link between Global Market Change and Local Strategy: The case of Vietnamese Cinnamon in the 18th and 19th Century.- Revisiting Theories on the Collapse of the Indian Ocean Maritime Region.- Bilbao merchant and their Trade in the Eighteenth Century: The View of the Private Company and the Privileged Company.- Part II Maritime Asia in Contemporary Eras.- Modern China’s Imagining of the Nanyang and the Construction of Transnational Asia, with a focus on The Journal of the Nanyang Archipelago Commercial Study Association.- Sergei Witte and the shipping associations: Rethinking the Russian Empire from a maritimeviewpoint.- Itinerary, Revolution, and Port Cities: Comparative Study on Maritime Port Cities as Arenas for Asian Revolutionary Movements.- ASPAC or ASEAN? : Institutional Evolution and Survival in Contemporary Maritime Asia.

Shigeru Akita is Professor of Global History, Graduate School of Letters, Osaka University, Japan.

 

Hong Liu is Tan Kah Kee Endowed Chair Professor of Asian Studies and Director, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

 

Shiro Momoki is Professor of Asian History, Graduate School of Letters, Osaka University, Japan.