Captain William Adams (1837–1890) was one of the exceptional whaling masters who sailed from Dundee in Scotland. This paper uses primary sources to confirm his reputation not only as a whaler but also as an adventurous explorer and wealthy businessman. He became outstandingly successful with Alexander Stephen & Sons, the Dundee shipping company that pioneered the use of auxiliary powered vessels for use in sealing in Labrador and fishing for whales in the Davis Strait and beyond. His first command was the Arctic in 1868, and his reputation was such that he was chosen by Albert Hastings Markham as his mentor in gaining experience for polar exploration. The unfortunate loss of the Arctic in Regent Sound in 1875 did no damage to this reputation and Adams was made Master of the newly built flagship of the company's fleet, the Arctic II. In 1883, by then a rich man, Adams became his own Master with the purchase of the Maud. In 1890, the vessel was returning to Dundee from Arctic waters when Captain Adams, who was accompanied by his son also William Adams (1869–1942) acting as Mate, was taken fatally ill, dying at Thurso in Caithness.

During the Tang period (618–907), war and the preparations for war significantly influenced the shape of the Chinese empire and the lives of its people. That influence can be found on at least four levels. The first of these is the state’s demand for military service, which imposed a variety of burdens upon a significant percentage of the population. The second is the state’s demand for cash, fabric, grain and other financial and material resources to meet the needs of the military establishment, a demand that affected the whole of the taxpaying population. Third is the loss and destruction caused directly by warfare, especially massive internal conflicts such as the rebellions of An Lushan and Huang Chao. Fourth, and most far-reaching and diffuse, is the range of cultural reactions to military affairs, from the emphatic embrace of martial attitudes and behaviors to their emphatic rejection.

This article underscores the impact of the Qing dynasty’s war making capacity and organization on non-military areas. Following a brief account of the Qing military establishment and its major operations in the first half of the dynasty, i.e., 1640–1800, it explores several important examples of how Qing military institutions interacted with the civil bureaucracy and society at large. First, through the practice of appointing officials across the divide between the civil and military bureaucracies, military personnel penetrated into the domain of the civil state apparatus, quietly transforming the Qing government’s makeup. Second, Qing military costs deeply influenced the distribution of dynastic financial resources and general administration at all levels. Finally, the Qing’s wartime logistical system engaged both the civil bureaucracy and society, opening many opportunities for both civil bureaucracy personnel and the private sector, which in turn re-shaped the local socio-economic landscape.

Although the standard narrative of the Song dynasty is one of civil dominance over the military within the government and society, the institutional development of the government bureaucracy argues for a more nuanced description. The martial side of the government achieved parity in size with the civil side during the Song, exclusive of the army and its bureaucracy. Literati with civil exam degrees filled most of the upper ranks of this martial bureaucracy and therefore occupied themselves with martial, rather than civil, concerns on a day to day basis. A significant number of important civil literati spent most of their time on military tasks and military policy. Functionally then, in contrast to their ideology, many civil literati were militarized by their roles in the bureaucracy while they were controlling it.

This study focuses on the mechanisms of contract enforcement and dispute resolution in the trade of timber in Shanghai from the 1880s to the 1930s. It shows that merchant guilds, chambers of commerce, and the court system constituted complementary institutions of contract enforcement. Timber trade guilds relied on reputation mechanisms and information sharing to maintain intra-group solidarity and monitor outside trading partners. Horizontal communications among timber guilds in different localities further enhanced their capability to respond promptly to cross-regional cases. When disputes escalated beyond the scope of a single merchant guild, chambers of commerce (after 1904) and the court system became involved. Vertical communications among these organizations strengthened the continuity from informal norms of business practices to guild regulations, and thence to adjudications in court. Whereas the typical story, drawn from European history, was one of transition toward more formal institutions, this case study shows that formal and informal institutions could complement each other and that they existed along a continuum rather than in separated spheres. The convergence of the expected outcomes as a result of resorting to different platforms of dispute resolution reinforced the consistency and credibility of the cost of defaulting.

Systemic attention to military institutions sharpens our understanding of the Ming dynasty in comparative, global terms and yields a fuller perspective on the state and its role in people’s lives. First, the Ming dynasty devoted more resources, in absolute terms, to its military enterprise than any other contemporary power. It maintained enormous standing armies that drilled regularly, empire-wide logistical systems, welfare provisions for military dependents and retired or injured military personnel, and multi-tiered, standardized arms productions under state supervision. Western European states were just starting to achieve such capacity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Second, focused on civil administration, such as taxes, labor service, magistrates, land surveys, tithing communities, and mutual responsibility organizations, past scholarship has largely ignored how the state’s extensive military institutions both shaped society and served as resources that people used to advance their personal, family, and community interests.

In recent historical studies of modern East Asia, the issue of migration has received increased scholarly attention. This article traces recent historiographical and methodological trends by analyzing influential English-language works on modern East Asian migrations in the first half of the twentieth century. Modern East Asian migrations during this period present dynamic and heterogeneous features as results of modern social transformations, such as the development of global capitalism, national and global economic integration, the emergence of new transportation and communication technology, and the expansion and collapse of the Japanese empire. Accordingly, the historical works on modern East Asian migrations we examine display a variety of historiographical and theoretical approaches. Specifically, this article underscores important trends or comparable emphases in these studies, including the growing scholarly interest in transnational/regional border crossing movements, migrants’ subject formations in the new environments, and the methodological interest in the role of culture, political economy, and the environment. Thus this article offers a reflective overview of the ongoing development of migration studies centering on modern East Asia.