新书：Mr. Smith Goes to China

An illuminating account of global commerce in the eighteenth-century Indian Ocean world as seen through the lives of three Scottish traders

This book delves into the lives of three Scottish private traders—George Smith of Bombay, George Smith of Canton, and George Smith of Madras—and uses them as lenses through which to explore the inner workings of Britain’s imperial expansion and global network of trade, revealing how an unstable credit system and a financial crisis ultimately led to greater British intervention in India and China.

Jessica Hanser

Humanities (History)

Assistant Professor

Jessica Hanser is assistant professor of history at Yale-NUS College in Singapore. Hanser’s doctoral dissertation, on which this book is based, won Yale University’s Hans Gatzke Prize in European History.

Dr Jessica Hanser received her BA from the University of Chicago in Anthropology in 2003, an MPhil in Early Modern History from the University of Cambridge in 2004 and a PhD in History from Yale University in May 2012.

Hailing from sunny south Florida, Dr Hanser has trotted the globe, calling Hong Kong, Italy, Israel, England and Taiwan home. Dr Hanser feels most exhilarated when learning about and from cultures and societies new to her.