"The history of the modern world can be described through the history of the commodities that were produced, traded and consumed, on an increasingly global scale. The papers presented in this book show how in this process borders were transgressed, local agents combined with metropolitan...

The papers presented in this collection offer a wide range of cases, from Asia, Africa and the Americas, and broadly cover the last two centuries, in which commodities have led to the consolidation of a globalised economy and society - forging this out of distinctive local experiences of...

The book brings together original, state-of-the-art historical research from several continents and examines how mainly local peasant societies responded to colonial pressures to produce a range of different commodities. It offers new directions in the study of African, Asian, Caribbean, and...