Between 1500 and 1900 there was a constant growth in the numbers of large cities and networks of smaller towns throughout the Pacific world in which traders and primary producers did business. The essays in Urbanization and the Pacific World explore the increasingly complex economic relationships that connected cities in and around the Pacific world to each other, and pay particular attention to the impact that growing cities had on the economies of their hinterlands. The volume also contains articles that examine the problems that city growth created and the ways in which people were able to cope with them. Along with the new introduction, the essays cover all of the regions of the Pacific world in which city growth took place, and will allow the reader to consider a wide range of common and contrasting urban experiences.

Contents: Introduction; Traditionalism and colonialism: changing urban roles in Asia, Rhoads Murphey; Macao as a religious and commercial entrepÿt in the 16th and 17th centuries, C.R. Boxer; Batavia, 1619-1740: the rise and fall of a Chinese colonial town, Leonard Blussé; The development of Pacific coast ports during the Spanish colonial period in Mexico, Donald D. Brand; The development of Philippine cities before 1900, Daniel F. Doeppers; Some reflections on urbanization and the historical development of market towns in the lower Yangtse region, ca. 1500-1900, Shih-chi Liu; Urban sanitation in preindustrial Japan, Susan B. Hanley; Coping in their own way: Asian cities and the problem of fires, Lionel Frost; A historical review of housing conditions in Hong Kong, E.G. Pryor; Public health care in Valparaíso, Chile, Ronn Pineo; Honolulu in the 19th century: notes on the emergence of urban society in Hawaii, Gavan Daws; Australian capital cities in the 19th century, J.W. McCarty; The making of urban New Zealand, David Hamer; Seattle, Vancouver, and the Klondike, Norbert MacDonald; City commercial, city beautiful, city practical: the San Francisco visions of William C. Ralston, James D. Phelan and Michael M. O'Shaughnessy, Robert W. Cherny; Index.