This book offers the first long-term business history of how global and local companies reshaped the region’s landscapes and economies through plantation agriculture. Covering the period from the late nineteenth century to the present, the book traces the rise of the plantation model under European trading houses and free-standing companies, its transformation under multinational firms, and its consolidation by locally owned conglomerates in the postcolonial era. 

It focuses on rubber and palm oil in island Southeast Asia. It shows how these two crops turned the region into a global agribusiness hub while driving deforestation, biodiversity loss, labor exploitation, and recurring environmental crises. 

Drawing on more than twenty archival collections across seven countries, complemented by oral histories, the book provides an unprecedented analysis of how corporate strategies and investment decisions intersected with ecological transformation. Situating island Southeast Asia at the crossroads of business history, environmental history, and international business, it demonstrates that the legacies of colonial capitalism remain deeply embedded in today’s debates on sustainability, governance, and climate change.