acase@tulane.edu / My dissertation explores the history of Veracruz during the transition to Mexican independence through a focus on traders, vendors, and mule drivers ⎯ the people who formed the chains of connection that linked this region together and connected it not only to Mexico, but also the Atlantic world. I shift the ways that scholars have traditionally looked at Veracruz, as bound by the nation-state, and investigate the position of Veracruz inward towards the nation and outward towards the Atlantic world to demonstrate Veracruz's local, regional, national, and transnational connections which are crucial to understanding the history of both Veracruz and Mexico. This dissertation explores the chaotic transition to Mexican independence through a focus on the lives and politics of early nineteenth-century plebeian traders and their networks (traders, vendors, mule drivers, and dockworkers) ⎯ a crucial, but understudied community ⎯ in the port city of Veracruz. These actors played a pivotal role in forming the chains of connection that bound the inhabitants of Veracruz together, connected Veracruz to the rest of Mexico, and fostered the ties that helped bind Veracruz to the Atlantic world. This project reveals that in connecting Mexico to the wider Atlantic world, Veracruz and its petty traders provide a transnational lens for understanding this period, one that takes seriously the flows of goods, people, and ideas, which is often overlooked by scholarship informed by regionalist and nationalist narratives. In foregrounding the nation-state, the historiography has tended to overlook Veracruz's position as a local, regional, national, and transnational center. In fact Veracruz, like other port cities, existed as an important liminal space receiving social, economic, and political influences from various places. This project begins in 1821, when the majority of Mexico addressed the building of the newly independent Mexican nation; Veracruz remained a contested space between the Spanish and Mexican militaries, demonstrating the significance of the port for Mexico and Spain. The study ends in 1850 after the introduction and use of Mexico’s first railroad, which departed from the port city of Veracruz. This railroad marked the reduction of the importance of the road system for transporting goods, led to an increase of goods transported across Mexico and exemplified Mexico’s transition from a period of the confluence of colonial and independence practices to a stage of sought after modernization. / 1 / Beau Gaitors

Thesis--Zurich. / Includes bibliographical references (p. v-vi).

Portraits of hong merchants produced in the latter period of the Canton Trade (1820-1840) portray these merchants in a new manner — one that previously had not been seen in China. These portraits depict Chinese subjects through a pastiche of signs associated with China's elite, yet the medium of oil painting and the use of perspective, drawn primarily from European artistic traditions, was unusual in Canton and was not in popular use in China as a whole. This study examines portraits of hong merchants executed by a Scottish artist residing in Canton, George Chinnery, as well as his Chinese student, Lamqua, in order to trace a particular form of portraiture that emerged at this time. As I will argue, this type of portraiture evoked the contradictions inherent in the hong merchant's position, which was situated between Chinese rule and foreign trade, and also gave form to a range of tensions and disparities that existed between the merchants and Chinese mandarin officials, or hoppos. Along with the exchange of commodities which was central to the merchants trade, there existed a simultaneous cultural exchange which was affected by new media and new forms of knowledge. The introduction of oil painting to China and the circulation of merchant portraits are a case in point. The hong merchant portraits offered a stage for the performance of a carefully constructed and imagined identity that encapsulated a range of desires and aspirations for elite status within China. Furthermore, these portraits also served as an important mode of exchange with, and for, European viewers. This identity was a performance of status and class both in the imagination of the hong merchant, but also one performed for foreign traders who would see these images. The portraits of the hong merchants thus embody diverse social dimensions where the subject is embedded within a network of references to class, rank, and demeanour. Using the medium of oil paint, the illusion of the image extended beyond the use of shadow and perspective as the portraits inscribed an identity for the hong merchant that was at once elusive and illusive.

Portraits of hong merchants produced in the latter period of the Canton Trade (1820-1840) portray these merchants in a new manner — one that previously had not been seen in China. These portraits depict Chinese subjects through a pastiche of signs associated with China's elite, yet the medium of oil painting and the use of perspective, drawn primarily from European artistic traditions, was unusual in Canton and was not in popular use in China as a whole. This study examines portraits of hong merchants executed by a Scottish artist residing in Canton, George Chinnery, as well as his Chinese student, Lamqua, in order to trace a particular form of portraiture that emerged at this time. As I will argue, this type of portraiture evoked the contradictions inherent in the hong merchant's position, which was situated between Chinese rule and foreign trade, and also gave form to a range of tensions and disparities that existed between the merchants and Chinese mandarin officials, or hoppos. Along with the exchange of commodities which was central to the merchants trade, there existed a simultaneous cultural exchange which was affected by new media and new forms of knowledge. The introduction of oil painting to China and the circulation of merchant portraits are a case in point. The hong merchant portraits offered a stage for the performance of a carefully constructed and imagined identity that encapsulated a range of desires and aspirations for elite status within China. Furthermore, these portraits also served as an important mode of exchange with, and for, European viewers. This identity was a performance of status and class both in the imagination of the hong merchant, but also one performed for foreign traders who would see these images. The portraits of the hong merchants thus embody diverse social dimensions where the subject is embedded within a network of references to class, rank, and demeanour. Using the medium of oil paint, the illusion of the image extended beyond the use of shadow and perspective as the portraits inscribed an identity for the hong merchant that was at once elusive and illusive.

This study attempts to contribute to the history of merchant shipping in a manner suggested by Ralph Davis, that 'the writing of substantial histories of the ports' was a neglected, but important, part of the subject of British maritime history. Aspects of the shipping industry of the port of Whitby fall into three broad categories: the ships of Whitby, built there and owned there; the trades in which these vessels were employed; and the port itself, its harbour facilities and maritime community. The origins of Whitby shipbuilding are seen in the context of the rise to prominence of the ports of the North East coast, and an attempt is made to quantify the shipping owned at Whitby before the beginning of statutory registration of vessels in 1786. A consideration of the decline of the building and owning of sailing ships at Whitby is followed by an analysis of the rise of steamshipping at the port. The nature of investment in shipping at Whitby is compared with features of shipowning at other English ports. An introductory survey of the employment of Whitby-owned vessels, both sail and steam, precedes a study of Whitby ships in the coal trade, illustrated with examples of voyage accounts of Whitby colliers. The Northern Whale Fishery offered further opportunities for profit, and may be contrasted with the inshore and off - shore fishery from Whitby itself. A quantification of the importance of Whitby shipping in the Baltic is followed by a study of Whitby ships carrying emigrants to Canada and convicts to Australia. The impact of war, especially in the late eighteenth century, brought unprecedented prosperity to the port, where the continued significance of the local shipping industry was always at odds with its small population and landward isolation.

This thesis examines the record of development and the prospects for national ascent in the anglophone Caribbean. It argues that a transformative dialectic is operating through the restructuring of political-economic relations in the Americas. NAFTA and its expansion open up possibilities for business linkages, joint venture arrangements, and investment and trade creation opportunities for participating countries. This is a structural development opportunity that Caribbean state managers can least ignore. Indeed, a record of missed or squandered opportunities extends backwards into the region's colonial past. Since the independence period, developmentalist projects have been stultified by populist-statism and the circulationism of merchant capital in the individual countries. In spite of this, the national option appeared a secure one. Economic viability rested on the sale of one or two cash crop exports; the securing of non-reciprocal trading arrangements in the international arena; the promotion of the individual countries as cheap labour platforms for foreign manufacturing; a dependence on incomes from tourism and offshore services; and easy access to international loan capital. Today, the shifting competitive dynamics of the international system have yery far reaching implications for the nature of the Caribbean political economy. Economies of scope and scale are increasingly being favoured. The region has been caught napping because capital accumulation remains rooted in distribution infrastructures and not production ones. Indeed, the hegemony of circulation over production in the Caribbean points to the special circumstances that attended the new political class at the time of independence in the 1960s. The stability goal took paramount importance. State managers and the old commercial oligarchy became united by a lowest commondenominator interest, i.e. to reap and extend the benefits of the status quo. The nature of this postcolonial arrangement meant that state managers would fail to deepen the process of capital accumulation and industrialise. This thesis suggests that in light of the present balance of global socio-political forces, and the region's economic malaise, the Caribbean will be on better ground to pursue economic recovery through a deeper form of regionalism. It argues that export-orientated development is a social transformation venture that goes beyond new fiscal measures and market reforms. Hence the need to engender the rise of a new economic class of industrial entrepreneurs. Accordingly, this thesis concludes that a regionalised developmental state in the Caribbean will be vital for altering the region's status in the international system and the hemisphere, and for pursuing a 'nurture industrial capitalism' project.

Thesis (doctoral)--Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universität Bonn.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Erlangen.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1937. / Vita. Published also without thesis note. "Materials referred to in text": p. [221]-235; "Table of cases": p. [237]-242.

Thesis--University of Bombay. / Bibliography: p. 309-312.