ABSTRACT
This chapter argues for a new kind of urban history that is attentive to the small spaces, often service, labouring, and storage spaces, that supported the infrastructure of empire. Rather than beginning with a city or a mercantile agency as a unit of analysis, the chapter uses the passage of alcohol from Europe to South Asia to trace the connections between port cities and their surroundings, and the manner in which new spatial types were created, and how these contributed to the organisation and experience of the urban landscape.
