Introduction

In 1978 the British Economic History Society Annual Conference was held in Swansea, and A. J. H. Latham gave a paper based on his then newly published book The International Economy and the Undeveloped World, 1865–1914 (Latham 1978). This book introduced the concept of intra-Asian trade, particularly in respect of the rice trade (Latham 1978: 77, 94). Intra-Asian trade was to become a major theme of collections to be published later by Latham and Kawakatsu. The dynamic growth of mutually reciprocal trade within Asia was stressed, in contrast to the focus of earlier studies, which stressed the development of bilateral trade directly between the Colonial powers and their Asian territories. Even during the Colonial period itself these intra-Asian dynamics were evident, operating between the Asian territories of the colonial powers. This theme was to be investigated later in collections such as Intra-Asian Trade and the World Market (Latham and Kawakatsu 2006) and Intra-Asian Trade and Industrialization (Latham and Kawakatsu 2009). Heita Kawakatsu was in the audience at Swansea that day, with his Oxford tutor Peter Mathias. He was enthused by another issue raised in the paper, the industrialisation of the Indian cotton industry and the expansion of the sales of its yarns and textiles within Asian markets. As Latham pointed out in his lecture, contrary to deeply entrenched convictions that the cotton industry of India was destroyed by competition from Lancashire, the successful industrialisation of the Indian cotton industry did indeed take place in the late nineteenth century, particularly in Bombay (Latham 1978 55, 77, 128, 151).