List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction The Companies in Asia Adam Clulow and Tristan Mostert Part 1: Diplomacy 1. Scramble for the spices: Makassar's role in European and Asian Competition in the Eastern Archipelago up to 1616. Tristan Mostert 2. Diplomacy in a Provincial Setting: The East India Companies in Seventeenth-Century Bengal and Orissa Guido van Meersbergen 3. Contacting Japan: East India Company Letter to the Shogun Fuyuko Matsukata Part 2: Trade 4. Surat and Bombay: Ivory and Commercial Networks in Western India Martha Chaiklin 5. Interdependence, Competition, and Contestation: The English and the Dutch East India Companies and Indian Merchants in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Ghulam Nadri Part 3: Violence 6. Empire by Treaty??The role of written documents in European overseas expansion, 1500-1800 Martine van Ittersum 7. 'Great help from Japan': The Dutch East India Company's Experiment with Japanese Soldiers Adam Clulow 8. The East India Company and the foundation of Persian Naval Power in the Gulf under Nader Shah, 1734-47 Peter Good Epilogue The Dutch East India Company in Global History: A Historiographical Reconnaissance Tonio Andrade