GREG BANKOFF is Associate Professor of History, University of Auckland, New Zealand.

PETER BOOMGAARD is Senior Researcher, KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Introduction: Natural Resources and the Shape of Asian History, 1500-2000; G.Bankoff & P.Boomgaard Natural Resource Management and Mismanagement: Observations from Southeast Asian Agricultural History; D.Henley PART I: RESOURCES AND STATE The Physical Transformation of the Central Thai Region in Pre-Modern Times; B.Terwiel Poor Little Rich Islands: Metals in Bangka-Belitung and West Kalimantan; M.Somers Heidhues Making Places and Making States: Agriculture, Metallurgy, and the Wealth of Nature in South India; K.Morrison PART II: FORESTS AND DEVELOPMENT From Wood to Timber: Changing Perceptions of Philippine Forests, 1565-1900; G.Bankoff Seeing the Timber for the Forest: The Wood in Japanese Capitalism; G.Clancey Burma and the Politics of Teak: Dissecting a Resource Curse; R.Bryant Losing Ground: Development, Natural Resources, and the Dispossession of Malaysia's Orang Asli; [...] PART III: ENVIRONMENTS AND LIVELIHOODS From Riches to Rags?: Rice Production and Trade in Asia, Particularly Indonesia, 1500-1950; P.Boomgaard Instructive and Nourishing Landscapes: Natural Resources, People, and the State in Late Imperial China; [...] Demographic Growth, Agricultural Expansion, and Livestock in the Lower Chindwin in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries; M.Charney "Stealing from the Gods:" Fisheries and Local Use of Natural Resources in Vietnam, 1800-2000; J.Kleinen