Tribute and Profit illuminates the conduct and maintenance of maritime trade under Siam’s tributary relationship with imperial China, and scrutinizes the momentous role of the Chinese in Siam’s overseas trade and domestic economy. Based substantially on historical Chinese, Siamese, and European sources, Sarasin Viraphol’s reconstruction of the tributary trade pinpoints the creative subversions, calculated risks, and clever contrivances that kept the wheels of the Siamese economy turning for centuries. Eventually, tribute missions and the junk trade were supplanted by European-style maritime commerce, free trade, and open markets. Nevertheless, the influences of these bygone relations are still present in Thailand today.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, relations between China and the West were defined by the Qing dynasty’s strict restrictions on foreign access and by the West’s imperial ambitions. Cultural, political and economic interactions were often fraught, with suspicion and misunderstanding on both sides. Yet trade flourished and there were instances of cultural exchange and friendship, running counter to the official narrative. Tribute and Trade: China and Global Modernity explores encounters between China and the West during this period and beyond, into the early 20th century, through examples drawn from art, literature, science, politics, music, cooking, clothing and more. How did China and the West see each other, how did they influence each other, and what were the lasting legacies of this contact?

"In the first half of the nineteenth century the Qing Empire faced a crisis. It was broadly perceived both inside and outside of government that the “prosperous age” of the eighteenth century was over. Bureaucratic corruption and malaise, population pressure and food shortages, ecological and infrastructural decay, domestic and frontier rebellion, adverse balances of trade, and, eventually, a previously inconceivable foreign threat from the West seemed to present hopelessly daunting challenges.This study uses the literati reformer Bao Shichen as a prism to understand contemporary perceptions of and proposed solutions to this general crisis. Though Bao only briefly and inconsequentially served in office himself, he was widely recognized as an expert on each of these matters, and his advice was regularly sought by reform-minded administrators. From examination of his thought on bureaucratic and fiscal restructuring, agricultural improvement, the grain tribute administration, the salt monopoly, monetary policy, and foreign relations, Bao emerges as a consistent advocate of the hard-nosed pursuit of material “profit,” in the interests not only of the rural populace but also of the Chinese state and nation, anticipating the arguments of “self-strengthening” reformers later in the century."

A thorough examination and explanation of cyclic price movements and how they can be applied to trading and investing. Summarizes the main points of the work of J. M. Hurst and explains each aspect thoroughly. Authored by a prominent British financial writer, whose earlier work, Channel Analysis, was eagerly sought by U. S. investors, but was not readily available in this country. This book updates, expands, and revises the concepts in Channel Analysis. Explains how price channels may be drawn around price action and combined with cyclical analysis to determine effective buying and selling points. Shows and explains methods that make it possible to predict some turning points months before they are due to occur.