This book focuses on the production of low-quality goods the rise of markets for imitations
and shoddy goods and dishonest trading practices which developed along with the expansion of
global trade in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in East Asia. Fake imitation
counterfeit and adulterated goods have long plagued domestic and international trade. While we
are all familiar with contemporary attempts to control the manufacture and sales of such goods
economic historians have given the subject little attention despite the fact that the growth
of international trade and the lengthening of commodity chains played a major role in the
spread of such practices. The problem is approached in several ways. Part I of the book
examines the ways in which the asymmetry of product-quality information was reduced and
mechanisms were developed to bring greater order in the markets using case studies on cotton
fiber silk pongee cotton cloth fertilizer and tea. Part II of the book focuses on problems
associated with imported everyday-use items-which are referred to here as small things-and the
role played by imitations of such everyday goods as soap matches glass bottles and toys in
the development of the modern economies of Japan China and Taiwan. The project brings together
the work of an international team of scholars who offer important historical perspectives on
these issues exploring the ways in which new institutions were created that continue to play a
role in contemporary global economic activities.
