This study examines the interaction between growing palm oil export production and changes in Ngwa patterns of food production and family relations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It challenges the arguments of both dependency and vent-for-surplus theorists on the dominance of export-sector developments and the importance of changes initiated by Europeans. Local patterns of export growth and capital investment are shown to have been heavily influenced by independent changes in food production methods, gender and inter-generational relationships. Ngwa producers were affected by...

Histories of the plantations sector in Malaysia have largely focused on the rubber industry and on the rise and fall of big British-owned colonial enterprises. But since independence, the sector has entered a new phase of spectacular growth founded on the oil palm. This volume offers a radically different history of a firm that spans both eras. The fascinating story of United Plantations Berhad (UP) highlights a Scandinavian-founded firm that evolved along quite different lines from the normal models of British imperial businesses.

Histories of the plantations sector in Malaysia have largely focused on the rubber industry and on the rise and fall of big British-owned colonial enterprises. But since independence, the sector has entered a new phase of spectacular growth founded on the oil palm. This volume offers a radically different history of a firm that spans both eras. The fascinating story of United Plantations Berhad (UP) highlights a Scandinavian-founded firm that evolved along quite different lines from the normal models of British imperial businesses.