Nature’s Treasures

Commodities and environments in Global Asia, 1400-1800

Guillemette Crouzet (Editor), Michael O’Sullivan (Editor), Giorgio Riello (Editor)

In the early modern period, Asia had a unique environmental wealth and an equally dazzling array of commodities making the continent the centre of world trade and exchange. From the barren coasts of Yemen to the Himalayan foothills of Yunnan in China and the volcanic slopes of Java in Indonesia, many of the continent’s environments were manipulated for material extraction and profit, and ultimately subjected to the logic of commodity production.

Nature’s Treasures provides a sophisticated understanding of how economic processes on a global scale were profoundly influenced by Asian environments and ecologies, and how these environments were deeply altered by trade and processes of commodification and transplantation. The book includes analyses ranging from pearl fishing to the collection of cowry shells in marine and coastal areas, walrus hunting and the deployment of buffalo in frontiers by both Asian and European powers, and the transplantation and commodification of plants and crops such as cocoa and cinnamon within a wider geography that we call Global Asia. Nature’s Treasures draws on environmental history methodologies in seeking to reground commodities in their environments, and environments in their commodities.

List of figures
List of maps
List of tables
List of contributors
Foreword by Tirthankar Roy
Acknowledgements

Nature’s treasures: commodities, environments and the histories of Global Asia, 1400–1800 – an introduction
Guillemette Crouzet, Michael O’Sullivan and Giorgio Riello

1 The wealth of nature: global Asia’s environments and their commodification, c. 1400–1800
Giorgio Riello

Part I: Terraqueous ecologies of extraction and production

2 Trading lives for pearls: the commodification of pearls in Guangdong and Guangxi and its environmental consequences, c. 1400–1600
Sander Molenaar

3 Sustainability by happenstance: Japan’s marine product exports, c. 1680–1860
Robert Hellyer

4 Between money and the moon: the relationship between the trade in cowrie shells and the environment in the early modern Maldive Islands
Maarten Draper

5 The making of Colombo: Dutch and Lankan engineering, infrastructures and commodity trade, 1745–1795
Luc Bulten

Part II: Imperial frontiers and natural resources

6 The Siberian walrus and the Tsar: the ivory trade and the commodification of North Asia’s natural wealth in the seventeenth century
Chechesh Kudachinova

7 From land to sea: new fertilisers and their environmental consequences in early modern Japan
Masayuki Tanimoto

8 Charcoal and the political ecologies of minting precious metals in early modern India, 1600–1800
Michael O’Sullivan

9 Empire, environment and resources in French projects for the Seychelles in the late eighteenth century
Guillemette Crouzet

Part III: Political economies of plantations and transplantations

10 Unfinished business: the company quest to commodify cacao in island Southeast Asia
Kathleen Burke

11 Towards a multi-species plantation regime: sugar in early modern Asia
Guanmian Xu

12 Between imperial designs and nature’s resistance: the transplant of Ceylon cinnamon to Brazil
Renata Cabral Bernabé

13 A French global commercial empire? The political economy of transplants between the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean in the eighteenth century
Giulio Tallini

14 Environment and non-commodification: failed ventures in rhubarb’s transplant history
Anne Gerritsen

Afterword by Sujit Sivasundaram
Index

DOI: 10.14324/111.9781806553259

Number of illustrations: 46

Publication date: 01 June 2027

PDF ISBN: 9781806553259

Paperback ISBN: 9781806553242

Guillemette Crouzet (Editor)

Guillemette Crouzet is Research Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. She a historian of European empires and the Middle East, with a particular focus on the Persian Gulf. More generally, her research explores the entangled histories of globalization, imperialism and terraqueous environments in the early modern and modern Indian Ocean World and Eurasia. She is the author of Inventing the Middle East: Britain and the Persian Gulf in the Age of Global Imperialism (McGill-Queen’s University Press 2022). Guillemette is also the co-editor of Finding Antiquity, Making the Modern Middle East: Archaeology, Empires, Nations (Bloomsbury, 2025).

Michael O’Sullivan (Editor)

Michael O’Sullivan is Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. He a historian of South Asia and the Middle East and is Research Associate for the CAPASIA Project at the European University Institute. He is the author of No Birds of Passage: A History of Gujarati Muslim Business Communities, 1800–1975 (Harvard University Press, 2023). His current project on the modern history of private Muslim banking in North Africa and Eurasia is forthcoming. His work has appeared, in Past and Present, International Journal of Middle East Studies and Modern Asian Studies, among other journals.

Giorgio Riello (Editor)

Giorgio Riello is Chair of Early Modern Global History at the European University Institute in Florence and Professor of Global History at the University of Warwick. He has published widely on the material exchange between Europe and Asia. He is the author of several books among which A Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World (Cabridge University Press, 2013). He has edited more than twenty books and special issues of journals. He was awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize and he is the Principal Investigator of the ERC Advanced Grant ‘CAPASIA. The Asian Origins of Global Capitalism’.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is "Nature’s Treasures" about?

In the early modern period, Asia had a unique environmental wealth and an equally dazzling array of commodities making the continent the centre of world trade and exchange. From the barren coasts of Yemen to the Himalayan foothills of Yunnan in China and the volcanic slopes of Java in Indonesia, many of the continent's environments were manipulated for material extraction and profit, and ultimately subjected to the logic of commodity production.

Nature’s Treasures provides a sophisticated understanding of how economic processes on a global scale were profoundly influenced by Asian environments and ecologies, and how these environments were deeply altered by trade and processes of commodification and transplantation. The book includes analyses ranging from pearl fishing to the collection of cowry shells in marine and coastal areas, walrus hunting and the deployment of buffalo in frontiers by both Asian and European powers, and the transplantation and commodification of plants and crops such as cocoa and cinnamon within a wider geography that we call Global Asia. Nature’s Treasures draws on environmental history methodologies in seeking to reground commodities in their environments, and environments in their commodities.

Who edited "Nature’s Treasures"?

"Nature’s Treasures" was edited by Guillemette Crouzet, Michael O’Sullivan and Giorgio Riello.

Guillemette Crouzet is Research Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. She a historian of European empires and the Middle East, with a particular focus on the Persian Gulf. More generally, her research explores the entangled histories of globalization, imperialism and terraqueous environments in the early modern and modern Indian Ocean World and Eurasia. She is the author of Inventing the Middle East: Britain and the Persian Gulf in the Age of Global Imperialism (McGill-Queen’s University Press 2022). Guillemette is also the co-editor of Finding Antiquity, Making the Modern Middle East: Archaeology, Empires, Nations (Bloomsbury, 2025).

Michael O’Sullivan is Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. He a historian of South Asia and the Middle East and is Research Associate for the CAPASIA Project at the European University Institute. He is the author of No Birds of Passage: A History of Gujarati Muslim Business Communities, 1800–1975 (Harvard University Press, 2023). His current project on the modern history of private Muslim banking in North Africa and Eurasia is forthcoming. His work has appeared, in Past and Present, International Journal of Middle East Studies and Modern Asian Studies, among other journals.

Giorgio Riello is Chair of Early Modern Global History at the European University Institute in Florence and Professor of Global History at the University of Warwick. He has published widely on the material exchange between Europe and Asia. He is the author of several books among which A Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World (Cabridge University Press, 2013). He has edited more than twenty books and special issues of journals. He was awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize and he is the Principal Investigator of the ERC Advanced Grant ‘CAPASIA. The Asian Origins of Global Capitalism’.

Is "Nature’s Treasures" available Open Access?

Yes, "Nature’s Treasures" is published Open Access. It is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

What is the Table of Contents for "Nature’s Treasures"?

List of figures
List of maps
List of tables
List of contributors
Foreword by Tirthankar Roy
Acknowledgements

Nature’s treasures: commodities, environments and the histories of Global Asia, 1400–1800 - an introduction
Guillemette Crouzet, Michael O’Sullivan and Giorgio Riello

1 The wealth of nature: global Asia's environments and their commodification, c. 1400–1800
Giorgio Riello