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The international order of Asia in the 1930s and 1950s

predicted decline of Norwegian and Greek cross-traders (whose vessels have often been Japanese-constructed), does not bode well for the future of Japanese shipping and shipbuilding. The remaining three chapters draw upon Davies’ recent work on the British merchant firm of Aspinall, Cornes and Company (Cornes and Company after 1873) in Yokohama, as well as his earlier work on the Elder Dempster shipping line in West Africa. Particularly insightful here is the stress laid upon improving communications infrastructure – steamship lines, the telegraph and banking systems – in the economic development of Meiji Japan and colonial West Africa. In the latter, Davies stresses the interconnections of British shipping, banking and commerce. Throughout the essays, there are abundant tables of statistics related to shipping tonnages and shipbuilding output, which will make this volume a useful work of reference in addition to the originality of its analysis and conclusions. Above all, Davies brings out the strong interplay of the state, entrepreneurship, overseas trade, and technology diffusion for Japanese economic development, and this exposition is skilfully placed in comparative perspective.