| Abstract: |
This chapter traces the profound changes that occurred in the eastern archipelagos after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869; the journey from Europe became much shorter, lasting forty to forty-five days, less than a quarter of the late eighteenth century travel time. As steam shipping lines knit the islands together, what were once frontier regions became more tightly bound to the global economy and colonial regimes. By the late nineteenth century maritime Southeast Asia was embedded in a trading system dominated by links between Britain, British India, and China.
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