Abstract
There is remarkable agreement that the modern transformation of Asia in general, and its Southeast extremity in particular, began with the steamships, telegraphs, railways and European political domination of the late nineteenth century. It was natural that those who wrote in the mid-twentieth century, still in the thrall of colonial power even if they were engaged in demolishing it, should have been impressed with all that building, those communications marvels and the ever-expanding indices of exports and imports. The impression has endured too long, however, that any changes before 1870 did not affect an essentially static equilibrium which was broken only by the relentless activity of European capitalists and imperialists. Even the best of the general histories, In Search of Southeast Asia, sees the period 1870–1940 as all about transformation and creation of the new, and especially the economic transformation wrought by an unprecedented boom in exports. The authors had the insight to recognize the preceding century (c.1760–1870) as a significant one, but of quite a different character — ‘an era of warfare, dynastic upheavals, population displacements, and intensifying struggles for both power and wealth … New states rose and others … disappeared.’1 Economic growth was the last thing on this agenda.
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Notes
David J. Steinberg (ed.), In Search of Southeast Asia, revised edition (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1987), p. 99.
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Peter Boomgaard, ‘Java’s agricultural production, 1775–1875’, in Economic Growth in Indonesia, 1820–1940, eds Angus Maddison and Gé Prince (Dordrecht: Foris for KITLV, 1989), pp. 99–100, has already drawn attention to the neglected ‘boom’ in Java’s coffee and sugar exports in the period 1795–1810.
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Ibid. The decline after 1870 is less surprising in a global context, in which the relative lethargy of the 1913–39 period has long been apparent. World trade grew overall at only 0.9 per cent a year in 1913–39, compared with 3.3 per cent in 1873–1913 and about 4.4 per cent in 1830–60: Arthur Lewis, ‘The rate of growth of world trade, 1830–1973’, in The World Economic Order: Past and Prospects, eds Steven Grassman and Erik Lundberg (London: Macmillan, 1981), pp. 11–12.
Robert MacMicking, Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines during 1848, 1849, and 1850 (London, 1851; reprinted Manila: Filipiniana Book Guild, 1967), p. 169.
Also Marshall McLennan in Philippine Social History: Global Trade and Local Transformations, eds A.W. McCoy and E.C. de Jesus (Sydney: Allen & Unwin for ASAA, 1982), p. 57.
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Reid, A. (1997). A New Phase of Commercial Expansion in Southeast Asia, 1760–1850. In: Reid, A. (eds) The Last Stand of Asian Autonomies. Studies in the Economies of East and South-East Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25760-7_3
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