Otis EDWARDS
Lecturer
Additional Role
Dr. Otis Edwards specializes in global economic history, with particular focus on the historical intersections of capital, commerce, and elite social structures between China and the United States. With over three decades of professional experience in China’s manufacturing export sector, Otis brings a unique perspective to his academic work, drawing on firsthand knowledge of transnational business networks and cross-cultural exchange.
His research investigates the dynamic relationships among capital flows, credit systems, and elite privilege in the context of nineteenth-century global trade. Otis’s doctoral work explores the interconnections between London capital markets, U.S. monetary policy, and global commodity flows, and how they shaped Sino-American trade in the early 1800s.
EDUCATION
BA, University of California, San Diego
MBA, Western University (Ivey Business School)
MA, University of Macau
PhD, The University of Hong Kong
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Global Economic History
Capital
Commerce
Elite Social Structures
Books
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BOOK AWARDS
COURSES TAUGHT
- HIST2154, American Capitalism in the long Nineteenth century
FELLOWSHIPS & GRANTS
EXTERNAL AFFILIATIONS
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
- “Reconfiguring Trade: London Finance, Lintin Island, and the Transformation of the Opium Economy in Early Nineteenth-Century Canton.” Conference paper, Enterprise and Economy in Modern China Conference at HKU (2025).
- “Walk This Way: Americans Refashioning the Etiquette of Walking in Canton and Macao.” Conference paper, Northwestern University (2018).
- “John Pickering Study of Native Languages: Contesting Accepted Notions of Inferiority.” Pickering House Museum, Salem, Massachusetts (2022).
- “The Remond Family: The Labor of Catering to Salem’s Mercantile Aristocracy on Chestnut Street.” Hamilton Hall, Salem, Massachusetts (2022).
- “Opium and Corporate Smuggling: Robert Bennet Forbes and the Barque Lintin, 1830–1842.” Forbes House Museum, Milton, Massachusetts (2022).