From 1613 to 1623, the English East India Company (EIC) maintained a trading post at Hirado, Japan. This trading post was one of the first that the EIC established, and because England was far from the empire it would one day become, Company members had to adjust to local customs and respect the laws of Japan in order to conduct business there. Among the many adaptations the EIC factors underwent, frequent visits to the Tokugawa shogun’s court were required of the EIC. This thesis will investigate the EIC’s journeys to the shogun’s court as well as its time at court to study the way in which the English interacted with the Japanese and conformed to Japanese society. This thesis will also discuss practices of gift giving in which the English participated. This study uses the diary of Richard Cocks, the head of the Hirado trading post, to focus on the period between 1615 and 1622. Alison Games’s concept of “cosmopolitanism” and Sanjay Subrahmanyam’s concept of “connected histories” frame this study to demonstrate how England’s and the EIC’s relatively weak status at the beginning of the seventeenth century required EIC members to assimilate into Japanese society. The EIC’s experiences while traveling through Japan, visiting the shogun’s court, and exchanging gifts emphasized the power difference between the EIC and the Tokugawa shogunate and other high-ranking Japanese. The policies the shogunate enforced to strengthen its authority and prevent rebellions also required the EIC to demonstrate their subservience to the shogun’s power, which affected the Company’s ability to trade. Since the English did not hold the authority to make demands of the shogun, they were forced to abide by the laws and customs of the land, which only further served to emphasize their subordinate position to the shogunate.

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This thesis explores the 1670 to 1683 trading relationship between the English East India Company and the Zheng family, a Ming loyalist organisation that controlled Taiwan in the late seventeenth century. It draws on the available sources of data for the Zheng family’s trading network to create an analysis of how the network functioned and developed, and then applies the available information from the East India Company’s records to understand how the company’s trade to Taiwan developed. The Zheng family’s trade was altered by their participation in the Sanfan Rebellion during the 1670s. The rebellion commercially isolated the Zheng family from mainland China, which in turn gave the East India Company an opportunity to supply substitute goods for the Zheng family’s trade elsewhere. However, the rebellion also weakened the Zheng family and brought about their surrender of Taiwan to Qing China, which ended the company’s trade there as well. / History

The play Batavia re-tells the story of a Dutch East India Company ship, wrecked off the West Australian coast in 1628. In writing Batavia, I consider issues of ethics and pragmatics in deciding how best to use or adapt historical sources--choices often between historical accuracy and effectiveness on stage. The playscript illustrates choices made. The exegesis examines the literature surrounding these considerations, and looks at other writers' comments and approaches to the problem. It suggests a pragmatics of playwrighting is well grounded in philosophy and is a more fruitful approach than the traditional 'ethical' approach.

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This dissertation explores the intellectual and cultural history of natural knowledge at the eighteenth-century court of Tipu Sultan of Mysore (r.1782-1799), and the ways in which this knowledge was both a product of Mysore’s local context and its wider global connections. It argues that more attention to Mysore’s sources and perspective is needed in the history of science given the power and productivity of the court before it was conquered by the British East India Company (BEIC) in 1799. After 1799, the BEIC dispersed the Mysore’s court’s library and artifacts, and obscured the court’s contributions to knowledge-making. This dissertation demonstrates that Mysore’s library and gardens were sites of natural science collection, experimentation, and production worthy of study. The extant collection of Tipu Sultan’s manuscripts remains understudied, especially those related to science. This dissertation outlines the surviving library texts related to natural knowledge and provides case studies of particular manuscripts that showcase Tipu Sultan’s interest in collecting, organizing, and producing encyclopedic knowledge of nature and natural processes. It further emphasizes that many (often unnamed) hands and labors enabled the natural sciences to be produced and disseminated in the eighteenth century, through close readings of Persian, French, and English texts and diplomatic records related to Tipu Sultan’s court. It thus seeks to recover both the elite contributions of Tipu Sultan and his courtiers engaged in natural knowledge production as well as the more obscure, but no less vital contributions of unnamed actors.

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Цель исследования – изучить развития торговой деятельности Китая с Россией и европейскими странами в рамках внешнеторговой политики, проводимой правителями Цинской империи в разные периоды. Объект данного исследования – торгово-экономические отношения Китая с Россией и Европой в 1722-1820 гг. Предмет исследования – торговая деятельность Китая с Европой и Россией и политика экономического развития, проводимая цинским правительством в указанный хронологический период. Представленная магистерская диссертация состоит из введения, трех глав, заключения, списка используемых источников и литературы, приложений. В первой главе рассматривается развитие межгосударственных торговых контактов Китая с Европой и Россией в эру Юнчжэн. Во второй главе исследуется этап активизации русско-китайских торговых отношений на Севере Китая в Кяхте и становление особой системы монопольной торговли с иностранцами в Гуанчжоу в эру Цяньлун. В третьей главе проанализированы особенности торговли на территории Кяхты и Гуанчжоу при императоре Цзяцине. В заключении приводятся краткие выводы по проведенным исследованиям. / The aim of the study is to examine the development of China's trade activities with Russia and European countries within the foreign trade policy pursued by the rulers of the Qing Empire in different periods. The object of this study is trade and economic relations of China with Russia and Europe. Subject of the research is China's trade activities with Europe and Russia and economic development policies pursued by the Qing government in the specified chronological period. This master's thesis consists of an introduction, three chapters, a conclusion, a list of used sources and literature, and appendices. The first chapter examines the development of China's interstate trade contacts with Europe and Russia in the Yongzheng era. The second chapter examines the stage of activation of the Russian-Chinese trade relations in the North China and formation of the special monopoly trade system with foreigners in Guangzhou in the Qianlong era. The third chapter analyses peculiarities of trade in the territories of Kyakhta and Guangzhou under the Jiaqing Emperor. The conclusion concludes with brief conclusions of the research.