Water Frontier: Commerce and the Chinese in the Lower Mekong Region, 1750-1880 - Paperback

by Nola Cooke (Editor), Li Tana (Editor), Choi Byung-Wook (Contribution by)

This innovative book rethinks the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century history of coastal and riverine southwest Indochina, the 'water frontier' of the title. It repositions old state-centered histories to reveal the region as a single, multiethnic economic zone knit together by the itineraries of junk traders and by the activities of many southern Chinese, settlers, sojourners, and merchants, whose local significance it explores. In so doing, it pioneers a new, nationally-neutral way of perceiving this dynamic region.

Author Biography

Nola Cooke is research fellow in the Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University. Li Tana is senior fellow in the Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University.