The Survival of Empire
Portuguese Trade and Society in China and the South China Sea 1630–1754

In this original study of the Portuguese Empire in the East, the Estado da India, George Souza looks in detail at the activities of Macao.

G. B. Souza (Author)

9780521531351, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 8 July 2004

304 pages
23 x 15.1 x 1.9 cm, 0.478 kg

In this original study of the Portuguese Empire in the East, the Estado da India, George Souza looks in detail at the activities of Macao. His aim is to enquire into the nature of Portuguese society in China and the South China Sea and explain why the political and economic activities of the Portuguese crown did not inhibit the growth of local entrepreneurial trade. He also examines the nature of Portuguese maritime trade in Asia and analyses the focal role of Macao as an adjunct to the Canton market. The operations of Portuguese private merchants, the so-called 'country traders', are described and tellingly assessed in the wider context of the economic development of China and Southeast Asia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

List of figures, maps and tables
Glossary
Notes on spelling and currency, weights and measures
Preface
1. Maritime trade in Asia
2. Imperial foundations: the Estado da India and Macao
3. Population, personalities, and communal power
4. Country traders and Crown monopoly
5. Merchants and markets
6. Country traders and the search for markets
7. Imperial relations: Macao and the Estado de India: 8. Imperial survival: Sino-Portuguese relations from Ming to Ch'ing
9. Macao, companies and country traders: the other Europeans in China
10. Conclusion
List of abbreviations and notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: General & world history [HBG]