The essays selected for this volume show how the Pacific rapidly became part of an industrializing world. By the 1930s"when the uneven effects of industrialization would have much to do with plunging the Pacific into war"one can already glimpse in outline the structural bases for many of the region's contemporary characteristics. All this is set in context in the introduction by Kenneth Pomeranz.

Kenneth L. Pomeranz is Chancellor's Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine, USA.

Contents: Introduction: Supplementary bibliography; The European miracle and the East Asian miracle: towards a new global economic history, Kaoru Sugihara; Traditional technology and its impact on Japan's industry during the early period of the industrial revolution, Erich Pauer; Country girls and communication among competitors in the Japanese cotton-spinning industry, Gary R. Saxonhouse; Handicraft and manufactured cotton textiles in China, 1871-1910, Albert Feuerwerker; Between cottage and factory: the evolution of Chinese and Japanese silk-reeling industries in the latter half of the 19th century, Debin Ma; The tribute trade system and modern Asia, Takeshi Hamashita; Competition in absentia: China, Japan, and British cotton textiles in Korea: 1876-1910, Kirk W. Larsen; 'Gentlemanly capitalism', intra-Asian trade, and Japanese industrialization at the turn of the last century, Shigeru Akita; Success ill-gotten? The role of Meiji militarism in Japan's technological process, Kozo Yamamura; Engineering China: birth of the developmental state, 1928-1937, William C. Kirby; Government and the emerging rubber industries in Indonesia and Malaya, 1900-1940, Colin Barlow and John Drabble; A note on the history of the textile industry in West Sumatra, Akira Oki; Colonialism and development: Korea, Taiwan, and Kwangtung, Samuel Pao-san Ho; The industrial far West: region and nation in the late 19th century, David Igler; Notes on the dawn of manufacturing in Chile, J. Fred Rippy and Jack Pfeiffer. Index.