ABSTRACT
The Java sugar industry rose to the forefront of the world sugar industry in the mid-nineteenth century and at its zenith in 1920s was second only to Cuba as an exporter of cane sugar to world markets. It has been widely assumed, nonetheless, to stand somewhat apart from the mainstream of capitalist plantation development in colonial Asia by virtue of the fact that its workers were notionally 'peasants' and its raw material produced on rural farmland in rotation with other 'peasant' crops. The present paper suggests the need for a major re-appraisal of this 'sugar-with-peasants' image and argues that in many important respects Java sugar production in the late colonial era did not differ significantly from the other 297main sectors of capitalist plantation production carried on elsewhere in Asia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
