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Asia Pacific Perspectives Vol. 9 No. 2, June 2010, University Of San Francisco, University Of San Francisco

Asia Pacific Perspectives

Contents:

The Sea Otter Islands: Geopolitics and Environment in the East Asian Fur Trade by Richard Ravalli

The origins of the sea otter trade can be traced to inter-Asian fur markets that developed centuries prior to the well-chronicled journeys of Vitus Bering and James Cook in the North Pacific. Japanese merchants and Ainu hunters traded for otter pelts as part of a larger system of exchanges in the Western Pacific. Russian entry to the trade by the early eighteenth century intensified territorial disputes in the Kuril Islands. A series of Russo-Japanese showdowns in the region helped forge an international borderland …