The Dutch and English East India Companies were formidable organizations that were gifted with expansive powers that allowed them to conduct diplomacy, wage war and seize territorial possessions. But they did not move into an empty arena in which they were free to deploy these powers without resistance. Early modern Asia stood at the center of the global economy and was home to powerful states and sprawling commercial networks. The companies may have been global enterprises, but they operated in a globalized region in which they encountered a range of formidable competitors. This groundbreaking collection of essays explores the place of the Dutch and English East India Companies in Asia and the nature of their engagement with Asian rulers, officials, merchants, soldiers, and brokers. With contributions from some of the most innovative historians in the field, The Dutch and English East India Companies: Diplomacy, Trade and Violence in Early Modern Asia presents new ways to understand these organizations by focusing on their diplomatic, commercial, and military interactions with Asia.

The coherent body of research described in this book is concerned with new HPLC method development and validation using novel systematic approaches for pharmaceutical and diagnostic compounds. The first stage of the research was to study how analytical method development and validation are typically carried out at present and to formulate this into a simple step-by-step approach. Such a template and protocol was not only used as the foundation of this research programme but could also serve as a simple systematic guide for other practitioners and those new to the field. Furthermore, it was recognised that this protocol should satisfy the requirements of the most strategically important regulatory agencies. The second stage of this research involved evaluation and application of the above validation approach to new methods that were developed for a diverse range of analytes using HPLC and LC-MS. In essence, the critical review of the requirements for method validation for various agencies and the subsequent preparation of guidelines on how to go about method validation have had a significant impact on analytical practitioners worldwide.