Canton Trade – Life and Enterprise on the China Coast, 1700–1845

Paul A. Van Dyke is Assistant Professor of History at University of Macau. He has published numerous articles on the history of maritime trade, and has been involved in several projects to advance the history of the Pearl River Delta including the translating and annotating of the Dutch Canton-Macao Dagregisters in English, and the compiling and writing of new histories on the Hong merchant families.

This is an impressive piece of scholarship, rich in new data and filled with new insights. Its publication will prove important to scholars of late imperial China and economic history. The former will learn a revisionist perspective on the Canton system that shows how the court largely adapted to the evolving conditions in Canton in the eighteenth century. The latter will learn much about the mechanics of international trade in an era preceding European dominance. -- R. Bin Wong, University of California, Los Angeles