This book examines how Chinese family and business networks, focused around activities such as revenue farming, including opium, the rice trade, and pawnbroking, and related legal and labour organization activities, were highly influential in the process of state formation in Malaya. It shows how Chinese family and business networks were flexible and dynamic, and were closely interlocked with economic and social structures, around which government, and states, developed. It considers the crucial role of wealth and power in the process of state formation, and challenges accepted views of Chinese ethnicity and migration.

About the Author
Wu Xiao An is Professor of History at Peking University and Director of the Peking University's Center for the Study of Chinese Overseas.

Reviews
The richness of both the thematic approaches as well as the breadth of the source materials used will surely make this book compelling reading. Readers interested in colonial history, state formation, social change, family business networks, and legal institutional development will all find challenging views and interesting description. Moreover, Wu Xiao An has shown us convincingly that these diverse issues not only can be analysed in an integrated fashion, but that they should be." - Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society

"The book is a major contribution to studies of nineteenth and twentieth century Malaysian history, studies of the overseas Chinese and studies of colonialism and it should be seen as an important complement to other works which show the role played by Penang in its neighbouring territories." - Journal of Southeast Asian Studies



Book Information
ISBN 9789971694968
Author Wu Xiao An
Format Paperback
Page Count 296
Imprint NUS Press
Publisher NUS Press
Weight(grams) 460g