Secret Trades, Porous Borders
Subtitle: Smuggling and States Along a Southeast Asian Frontier, 1865-1915 (Yale Historical Publications Series)
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: August 11, 2005
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 454
ISBN-13: 9780300089684
Subjects: Asian / Middle Eastern history: c 1500 to c 1900; Asian / Middle Eastern history: from c 1900 -; c 1800 to c 1900; c 1900 - c 1914; Business & Economics; True Crime / Espionage; Business/Economics; South East Asia; Other Miscellaneous Crimes; History / Southeast Asia; Commerce; Asia, Southeastern; Counterfeits and counterfeitin; Counterfeits and counterfeiting; Drug traffic; History; Smuggling; Southeast Asia
First sentence: On May 22, 1890, the ruler of a small state under Dutch control in Aceh, North Sumatra, wrote a brief letter in Malay.
Description: "Over the course of the half century from 1865 to 1915, the British and Dutch delineated colonial spheres, in the process creating new frontiers. This book analyzes the development of these frontiers in Insular Southeast Asia as well as the accompanying smuggling activities of the opium traders, currency runners, and human traffickers who pierced such newly drawn borders with growing success." "The book presents a history of the evolution of this three-thousand-kilometer frontier and then inquires into the smuggling of contraband: who smuggled and why, what routes were favored, and how effectively the British and Dutch were able to enforce their economic, moral, and political will. Examining the history of states and smugglers playing off one another within a hidden but powerful economy of forbidden cargoes, the book also offers new insights into the modern political economies of Southeast Asia."--BOOK JACKET.