Liberalism and the British Empire in Southeast Asia

Description

This collection of essays collects the leading scholars on British colonial thought in Southeast Asia to consider the question: what was the relationship between liberalism and the British Empire in Southeast Asia? The empire builders in Southeast Asia: Lord Minto, William Farquhar, John Leyden, Thomas Stamford Raffles, and John Crawfurd - to name a few - were fervent believers in a liberal free trade order in Southeast Asia. Many recent studies of British imperialism, and European imperialism more generally, have addressed how the anti-imperialist tradition of Eighteenth century liberalism was increasingly intertwined with the discourses of empire, freedom, race and economics in the nineteenth century. This collection extends those studies to look at the impact of liberalism on. British colonialism in Southeast Asia and early nineteenth century Southeast Asia we see some of the first attempts at developing multicultural democracies within the colonies, experiments in free trade and attempts to use free trade to prevent war and colonisation. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of illustrations 1. Mapping liberalism and empire in Southeast Asia What is liberalism? British colonial administrators and empire in Southeast Asia Liberalism in the writings of British colonial administrators in Southeast Asia Indigenous ideologies of power in Southeast Asia Indigenous and local responses to liberalism Conclusion – the end of the liberal order Notes 2. Before liberalism: William Marsden’s late Enlightenment imperial critique0 Marsden and the physiocrats Marsden and Robertson Land and cultivation Stadial theory in the later eighteenth century Marsden’s critique of Robertson Defending Sumatran civilisation Empires and monopolies Marsden and the Menangkabau Empires Conclusion Notes 3. Pragmatism at play: Farquhar, Raffles and the founding of Singapore Competition between merchant companies The need for a new port The Selection of Singapore Farquhar in Singapore The development of Singapore Singapore and free trade Conclusion Notes 4. The ideological origins of the founding of Singapore Committee on Foreign Trade Commonwealth of the Malay Archipelago Ends of empire National policy Politics of free trade Conclusion Notes 5. Rice and potato-eaters: Labour, wages and race in the political economy of British colonial administrators in Southeast Asia Labour as a source of value Labour in different soils, climates and countries The value of labour and different staple foods Customary needs Labour of unequal value in distant places Comparative costs between ‘nations’ in close proximity Labour of unequal value in the same country Asian subsistence levels and levels of civilisation Chinese labour Conclusion Notes 6. The gaze of a liberal imperialist: Observing and interpreting oriental despotism in John Crawfurd’s work On oriental despotism Linking oriental despotism and liberal imperialism Books, text, and context(s) Shapes of despotism and shades of orientalism Conjectural history and the material origins of oriental despotism Conclusion Notes 7. John Crawfurd’s 1829 pamphlet on free trade and colonisation and his liberal campaign for British imperial reforms in India and Southeast Asia Crawfurd’s pamphlet and his campaigns against the East India Company Free trade and colonisation as a way forward for India’s prosperity European colonisation of India Crawfurd on Britain’s obligation to Her Indian subjects Crawfurd’s pamphlet and his position on British colonialism in Asia The reception of Crawfurd’s pamphlet India and Southeast Asia in Crawfurd’s liberal vision of British imperial policy Notes 8. Protector of aborigines or war criminal: Two opposing liberal views of James Brooke Imperial humanitarianism of 1830s Reforming the degraded state and cultural identity of Southeast Asia Brooke the war criminal Adjudicating the two James Brookes: commission of inquiry Conclusion Notes 9. The liberal security experiment in Southeast Asia Maxwell’s critique as a response to British Colonial aggrandisement Liberal international relations Crawfurd’s History of Indian Archipelago and limited engagement The Free Traders Siam and Kedah James Brooke’s challenge to non-intervention Conclusion Notes 10. The liberalism narrative in Southeast Asia, and Australia Notes Bibliography Index