This subject provides an historical investigation of the interaction between European empires - specifically the British and the Dutch - and the Americas and Asia-Pacific region, from 1600-1950. It examines the combination of domination and cultural negotiation between colonisers and colonised, which included, among other processes, the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It examines both how peoples were managed as imperial subjects, and how they responded to this management. The subject explores both the effect of imperial rule on the colonised, and of empire upon the colonisers. It draws upon historical literature from a variety of sources and perspectives, and from European and Asian history.