Introduction: The Welsh in Asia: New Perspectives on Global Wales in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

This chapter sets out the background and content of this special issue of articles on the theme of 'The Welsh in Asia: New Perspectives on Global Wales in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries'. It begins by assessing the impact of the rise of imperial and global histories on the study of Welsh people and communities worldwide, before setting out the methodological approaches and sources adopted by article authors in this issue. By examining the lives of individual actors and the communities and associations they formed and sustained, the contributions to this volume seek to reposition Wales as an independent actor with its own agency in an Asian and global context.