This study eschews the uncritical acceptance of secondary sources that has characterized studies in this field, going back to and reinterpreting previously neglected primary sources, thereby enabling it to chart linkages between the European and Asian trades that have been regarded as parallel but unrelated (or at best competing) activities. In so doing, the work sheds new light on this crucial period.

Alexander Dalrymple was once described as the man who, after Hakluyt, had done most for the spread of Britain’s commerce. In this important new work, Dr. Fry discusses Dalrymple’s extensive contribution to knowledge about New Guinea and his pioneer attempt to establish a free port on Balambangan, and shows that his interest in the possibility of a North-West Passage and his influence in government circles were to be a major factor in bringing about Vancouver’s survey. Dalrymple’s research and theories about the great Southern Continent led to his appointment by the Royal Society as commander of the 1768 expedition, and though the Admiralty countermanded this decision and appointed instead Captain Cook, Dalrymple’s geographical researches were the motivating force behind the initiation of the search for Terra Australis. Dr. Fry throws interesting new light on Dalrymple’s relations with Cook, which, he argues, have been consistently misrepresented. Dalrymple became an expert navigator and surveyor during his years as captain of East India snows, and he became in turn hydrographer of the East India Company and the Admiralty. His work in this field revolutionised chart-making and was a contribution of incalculable value to Britain’s maritime supremacy in the nineteenth century. This classic book was first published in 1970.

This volume is a comprehensive listing of reference sources for Philippine ethnology, excluding physical anthropology and de-emphasizing folklore and linguistics. It is published as part of the East-West Bibliographic Series. This listing includes books, journal articles, mimeographed papers, and official publications selected on the basis of the ratings of sixty-two Philippine specialists. Several titles were added to fill the need for material in certain areas.

Paul Van Dyke works in many languages and archives to uncover the history of Peark River trade. This two-volume work is likely to be the most definitive reference work on the major trading families of Guangzhou. Organized as a series of family studies, this first volume includes exhaustive profiles of nine of the dominant hongs and their founding patriarchs for which good information survives: Tan Suqua, Tan Hunqua, Cai and Qiu, Beaukeequa, Yan, Mandarin Quiqua, Ye and Tacqua Amoy, Zhang, and Liang.

An illuminating account of global commerce in the eighteenth-century Indian Ocean world as seen through the lives of three Scottish traders This book delves into the lives of three Scottish private traders--George Smith of Bombay, George Smith of Canton, and George Smith of Madras--and uses them as lenses through which to explore the inner workings of Britain's imperial expansion and global network of trade, revealing how an unstable credit system and a financial crisis ultimately led to greater British intervention in India and China.

World history conventionally ignores or underestimates the importance of Manila, the Manila galleons, and the Philippines as key stages in the development of trans-Pacific contact and of the world economy. Essays in this volume discuss Philippine-Asian exchanges prior to the entry of Europeans, and then look at European influences and the impact of Magellan’s voyage, and the emergence of Manila as one of global trade’s crucial linchpins during four centuries. Linkages between Latin America and China, and Spanish-Japanese competition for the Chinese marketplace are important topics. Tensions and cooperation among Chinese, Japanese, Iberians, Africans, Christians, Muslims and others on Philippine soil are also covered. This volume suggests the need for thorough re-evaluation of the Philippines’ central role in terms of both Pacific history and global history as perhaps the single most important stage in the traffic that linked China and Latin America.