Commodities and Culture in the Colonial World

Commodity, culture and colonialism are intimately related and mutually constitutive. The desire for commodities drove colonial expansion at the same time that colonial expansion fuelled technological invention, created new markets for goods, displaced populations and transformed local and indigenous cultures in dramatic and often violent ways.

This book analyses the transformation of local cultures in the context of global interaction in the period 1851–1914. By focusing on episodes in the ...