ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to provide the historical knowledge on Southeast Asia as an integrated region, and Singapore’s predominance in it, with special reference to the British Eastern exchange banks during the age of high imperialism. On the basis of the archival sources of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China, this chapter will show the central position of Singapore in its Southeast Asian business and offer a perspective of the ways in which the British Eastern exchange banks played a vital role in the formation of the Anglo-Dutch international economic order in Southeast Asia. This subject has been shaped by the contrasting perspectives of British and Dutch historians, who have tended to remain so aloof from each other that the Southeast Asian archipelago might have been academically divided between north and south along the Straits of Malacca. There are some key texts that do seek to reach across the divide. In the same spirit, this chapter will also suggest the importance of transcending these imperial boundaries to build a clearer picture of developments across the region as a whole.
