Explores the circumstances and elements that make for a successful Southeast Asian entrepôt.

What made modern Singapore and fifteenth-century Malacca so exceptional in their success in trade, and why did so many other attempts fail to coalesce? Coming Together recasts the founding of modern Singapore as the culmination of a long tradition of alliance-building within the “straits and peninsula,” that sliver of maritime Southeast Asia that connects the Indian Ocean with the China Seas. From abortive Franco-Siamese projects in the 1680s, through lonely failure at Poulo Condor and stubborn frustration on the Burmese “Eastern Coast,” to the persistent enterprise of Bugis and Malay rulers during the 1770s and 1780s, Coming Together follows an evolving cast of princes, captains, merchants, and missionaries drawn together by a powerful idea: that the trade of Asia could be concentrated at a single and wildly prosperous place.

Long-neglected French archival materials illuminate events long distorted by colonial historiography, revealing the entrepôt as a transcultural project sustained by tributary diplomacy, treaty-making, and the pragmatic exchange of protection for commercial privilege. The result is a fundamental reinterpretation of the origins of Penang and Singapore—and of the alliance-building that lies at the core of modern Singapore.