Almost everyone living in the Dutch Republic or its territories in the East in the eighteenth century, who did not belong to a patrician family or to the upper middle class, could be considered ‘poor’ according to modern standards. In these societies, however, there was one group of people who could be singled out as extremely poor. These people, representing the lowest stratum of society, were the clientele of the poorhouses and poor relief.

According to traditional scholarship, Sakoku or the national seclusion of Japan in the early seventeenth century was primarily carried out with the intention of prohibiting Christianity. It is generally agreed that the seclusion ofJapan was completed through a series of edicts, the socalled Sakokurei (which were issued between 1633 and 1639 by the Bakufu (the Tokugawa Shogunal government). Through these edicts the Christian religion was forbidden in Japan. Japanese trading activities abroad were also prohibited through the issue of Kai-kin or maritime prohibitions. Finally the Portuguese trade from Macao was terminated. It is generally believed that the seclusion ofJapan was brought about as a means to gain better control of theJapanese people. In the final analysis the closure of Japan had a double meaning: the political meaning, the prohibition of Christianity, and an economic meaning, the restriction of trade.

All over Southeast Asia, the perception that the European colonizers had of the Chinese was characterized by a fundamental ambiguity. On the one hand, the Chinese were recognized to be very useful, and even indispensable to the economic development/exploitation of the colonial territories, as they were hard-working labourers, possessed needed entrepreneurial, commercial and technical skills and had already established trade contacts with the indigenous populations. But, on the other hand, the Chinese were perceived as a potential political threat because of their strong communal organization and solidarity, their secret societies and their frequent clan fights.

The historical image of Suriname – and maybe of colonies in general – is dominated by stereotypes, as well as by assumptions which are far too facile. That at least is the impression left after comparing a variety of primary sources on Suriname with the historiography of this colony. One small example will suffice. Almost every time slavery is introduced in literature on the history of Suriname, emphasis is placed on the fact that it was one of the hardest or cruellest slave systems in the entire Americas. The implication is that Suriname slavery is invariably considered to have been a system which remained static for more than two centuries. Something it certainly was not. Moreover, it shows that not one of the authors has ever troubled to take a look at the available demographic sources. Had they done so, they would have noticed there are no indications that Suriname deviated in this respect from the average Caribbean pattern.

From 1880 to 1930, Argentina received hundreds of millions of pounds of British investments, making it in an economic sense a British dominion. The world economic crisis of the 1930s forced both Britain and Argentina t o reconsider many of these economic ties. The changing Anglo-Argentine relationship is reflected in the complex relations between a British tramway company, the Anglo Argentine Tramways Co. Ltd., that operated in Buenos Aires and the Argentine national government between the onset of the Great Depression and the early 1960s. The Anglo, as the company was popularly known, was the main tramway concern diat offered public transportation and contributed to the urban development of a cosmopolitan Latin American metropolis until 1914. Second, the history of the company illustrates political and economic problems that plagued the links between foreign public utilities and the host government from the 1930s onwards. Third, since the Anglo belonged to SOFINA, a transnational holding company with worldwide investments in public transportation and electric power stations, our case study shows the limitations of Sofina's political power in Britain and Argentina.

Visitors to the sea-side resort of Swakopmund on the Namibian coast will have often stood on the northern banks of the Swakop river and marvelled at the sea of sand dunes that commences on the opposite side of the river. Very few of them will ever have realised that they were standing upon, and wandering amongst, the mass graves of Herero and Nama prisoners of war, who between 1904 and 1908 were employed as forced labourers. As I write the mass-graves of Swakopmund are used by recreationers as a testing ground for their four-wheel-drive off-road vehicles, perhaps in the future the true nature of these graves will come to be realised and appreciated.

Students of French overseas history could hardly imagine a better place to do their research than Aix-en-Provence, the delightful home of the Centre des Archives d'Outre-Mer. Readers of Itinerario will not expect an éloge on this town in the heartland of Provence, about which all travel guide clichés turn out to be true, but readers with experience of the Aix archives will admit that their surroundings easily divert the attention of even the most dedicated historian. The Centre des Archives d'Outre-Mer or CAOM was created in 1966 as an autonomous part of the Archives Nationales. From the outset it was intended to house the archives of the administration of France's former colonies that had gained independence. In 1987, however, the archives of the metropolitan administration were moved from Paris to Aixen-Provence as well. Nowadays, the CAOM houses collections on the former French colonies in Africa, Asia and the Americas.