This award-winning, pioneering work from a member of Malaysia's new generation of historians is a tale of two very different cities. Melaka was an important commercial entrepot on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula long before it fell to Portuguese forces in 1511, but thereafter began an extended process of decline that would continue after the Dutch conquest of the city in 1641. Penang became a significant port after 1786 when 'country traders' created a base on the island to defy the Dutch monopoly, although it was quickly overshadowed by Singapore after the founding of a British settlement there in 1819.

Drawing on a large volume of archival records, many of them not used by earlier historians, Trade and Society in the Straits of Melaka examines the social and economic fabric of these two port cities, the one very much a Dutch town and the other British. Along the way, the author gives consideration to urban morphology, demographic characteristics and migration, property rights, and slave ownership. He also provides a detailed account of shipping in the Straits of Melaka, and discusses how this information contributes to debates concerning the decline of the region's 'Age of Commerce' in the face of imperialist competition.

By documenting the impact of imperialist ambitions on the economy and society of two major trading centres, this book breaks new ground and will provide a point of reference for all future research concerning the period.