| Abstract: |
During the nineteenth century changes in industrial production, patterns of consumption and maritime technology enabled Western economies to surpass Asian. This was accompanied by a growing commercialisation of colonial primary industry; the output of such crops as rice, sugar, tobacco, coffee, tea, hemp and cotton all soared as new cultivation methods were introduced to meet, and create, expanding demand. In many areas this intensification was realized on plantations, but in the eastern archipelagos small holders were the main producers, either freely, or under political pressure. New commodities created opportunities in regions with the right ecological and political climate.
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