| Summary: | This edited work explores piracy and surreptitious activities such as privateering, war-making, slave-hunting and raiding, focussing on Southeast Asia in the early modern period. Readers will discover nine essays studying the different sub-regions of the Malay Archipelago and adjacent seas and exploring the nature and historiographical perception of piracy, maritime conflict and surreptitious activities. The authors probe the linkages between these occurrences with war and economy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in particular, and look at the transition into the nineteenth century. The introduction surveys the study of piracy in this period and chapters explore topics relating to Siak and Malay raiding, Dutch privateering, Chinese links to hostilities and surreptitious activities in the Melaka-Singapore region as well as raiding and piracy in the Malukan Archipelago. Later chapters explore Maguindanao “piracy” in the early eighteenth century, the seafaring world of the Sulu Sultanate and activities of Iberians in the adjacent seas connected to the region. The authors contribute to the literature by complementing studies that favour a closer discussion of the ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ sectors in history. This book opens up the subject area for delving into the various geographical locales and participating groups, as well as their possible linkages with one another. This volume will be of interest to students and academicians of Southeast Asian studies and those with a general interest in maritime piracy
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