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European Influence in South-East Asia, c.1500–1630

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

D.K. Bassett
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Extract

The more precise definition of the European impact upon South-East Asian trade and society prior to the nineteenth century has become an important pre-occupation of historians of that region in recent years. The hypothesis of J.C. van Leur that “modern capitalism” took shape only after 1820 impelled him to suggest an equality or near-equality between Asian and European commercial organization in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A corollary of this view was his negative assessment of the Portuguese achievement in South-East Asia, his refusal to accord them technical or organizational superiority except in a limited military sense, his insistence upon the small and unimportant Portuguese share of inter-Asian trade, and his denunciation of the Portuguese as little better than a band of condottieri who lacked an effective central administration.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian History , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , September 1963 , pp. 173 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1963

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References

1. van Leur, J.C., Indonesian Trade and Society. (The Hague and Bandung, 1955), 10, 31Google Scholar. He defined “modern capitalism” as “the pacification df world markets, political control of possessions ans spheres of influence.…, mobilization of the world as a market for sale ans production of goods and raw materials, mechanization of big industry, rational organization of free labour and free capital”.

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86. Op.Cit., 150.

87. Op.cit., 148.

88. Op.cit., 181.

89. Op.cit., 153.

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91. Ibid.

92. Ibid.

93. Meilink-Roelofsz, , Asian Trade, 125.Google Scholar

94. Op.cit., 186.

95. Op.cit., 184.

96. Ibid.

97. Op.cit., 164. There is considerable evidence in W.Ph. Goolhaas, Generale Missiven van Governeurs-General en Baden aan Heren XVII. I, (Hague, 1960) that the Portuguese of Malacca maintained trade with Griss until 1615 and that with Macassar, Timor, Solor end Macao until Couper enforced the blockade in 1633. Similarly, Portuguese competition from Malacca and via the Mergui Peninsula seriously affected Dutch pepper purchases and cloth sales in the Bay of Patani in 1626. See Coolhaas, , op.cit., 47, 84, 137, 138, 182, 191, 208, 226, 264, 281.Google Scholar

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