Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Water Frontier: Commerce and the Chinese in the Lower Mekong Region, 1750-1880 (World Social Change)

Water Frontier focuses principally on southwest Indochina (from modern southern Vietnam into eastern Cambodia and southwestern Thailand), which it calls the Lower Mekong region. The book's excellent contributors argue that, during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, this area formed a single trading zone woven together by the regular itineraries of thousands of large and small junk traders. This zone in turn formed a regional component of the wider trade networks that linked southern China to all of Southeast Asia. This is the 'water frontier' of the title, a sparsely settled coastal and riverine frontier region of mixed ethnicities and often uncertain settlements in which the waterborne trade and commerce of a long string of small ports was essential to local life. This innovative book uses the water frontier concept to reposition old nation-state oriented histories and decenter modern dominant cultures and ethnicities to reveal a different local past. It expands and deepens our understanding of the time and place as well as of the multiple roles played by Chinese sojourners, settlers, and junk traders in their interactions with a kaleidoscope of local peoples. Review A welcome addition to Southeast Asian studies, successfully meeting its objective of 'advancing a new approach to considering the shared history of Chinese settlement and interaction in southern Indochina and its surrounding areas.' . . . For those seeking to explore questions of historical causality emanating from intraregional dynamics, Water Frontier is sure to become required reading.--Wei Leng Loh "Business History Review "This volume manages to lift Vietnam and Vietnamese studies out of their doubly liminal state. ...By highlighting the role of trade in the making of the Lower Mekong region, the authors firmly place it in the world of Southeast Asia.*...*The world of the Lower Mekong region, as described by Li and Cooke, was borderless as well as centreless; it was multicultural and multi-ethnic; it was outward looking and thrived on the absence of administrative controls. ... At what point can this lawless, borderless, polycentric and multi-ethnic world be properly called Vietnamese?* ...*These are only some of the questions provoked by this modest yet agenda-setting volume. It is a highly welcome addition to any collection on Vietnam, Southeast and East Asia.--Hue-Tam Ho Tai "Pacific Affairs "A powerful study whose potential impact extends beyond the Mekong frontier, for the approach embodied in this book can be applied not only to other regions of Southeast Asia, but to much of the East Asian coast. Exceptionally stimulating.--Victor Lieberman, University of MichiganWater Frontier opens up a promising new view of mainland Southeast Asia, using ignored and recently discovered sources to piece together life on a little-noted maritime frontier. Challenging how national stories hide regional dynamics, the authors raise questions that will intrigue scholars for years to come.--Richard A. O'Connor, Sewanee: The University of the SouthA very persuasive argument that is sure to stimulate new scholarship in the coming years . . . Breaks ground with a wide range of topics that elaborate a coherent vision.--Keith Taylor "Asian Studies Review " About the Author 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.