East Asian Maritime World Vierzehnhundert Bis Achtzehnhundert

The volume is a collection of studies discussing aspects of the political economy and raison d'etat of East Asian countries, especially against the background of East Asia's integration into the "international" trade. The contributions progress from the general to the particular, the first contribution, above all, taking a broad perspective, intended as a general outline of the political and economic history of this macro-region. The other contributions examine the "East Asian world order" in ideology and reality, long perspective, supra-regional . ows of money between China and the outer world, the role of castaways and sea routes between Korea and China, Sino-Japanese relations in the mid-sixteenth century, the trade between China and Nagasaki, aspects of Sino-Ryu-kyu-an relations and the role of translators in the East Asian maritime world. The eighteenth century plays a key role in many contributions, and time and again the reader will meet with groups of persons who played a particular role within the exchange networks of this early modern period, such as monks acting as diplomats or interpreters.

This book takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the history of a region from the perspective of the interactions that occurred on and were facilitated by the sea. The book is divided into three parts that each focus on a different hundred-year period between 1250 and 1800. The chapters in each part examine the people, goods, and information that flowed across the seas of the East Asian maritime world, facilitating cultural exchange and hybridity. The intricate and often fraught relations between China, Japan, and Korea feature throughout, as well as those between these polities and the waves of outsiders that sought to trade with them and to conquer them. Regional diplomacy, ship-building technology, weaponry, Wokou pirate bands, the fates of castaways, and the development of international trade networks are just some of the topics that paint a vivid picture of the interconnected world of the East Asian maritime region during this period.

Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai traces the roots of modern global East Asia by focusing on the fascinating history of its seaways. The East Asian maritime realm, from the Straits of Malacca to the Sea of Japan, has been a core region of international trade for millennia, but during the long seventeenth century (1550 to 1700), the velocity and scale of commerce increased dramatically. Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese smugglers and pirates forged autonomous networks and maritime polities; they competed and cooperated with one another and with powerful political and economic units, such as the Manchu Qing, Tokugawa Japan, the Portuguese and Spanish crowns, and the Dutch East India Company. Maritime East Asia was a contested and contradictory place, subject to multiple legal, political, and religious jurisdictions, and a dizzying diversity of cultures and ethnicities, with dozens of major languages and countless dialects. Informal networks based on kinship ties or patron-client relations coexisted uneasily with formal governmental structures and bureaucratized merchant organizations. Subsistence-based trade and plunder by destitute fishermen complemented the grand dreams of sea-lords, profit-maximizing entrepreneurs, and imperial contenders. Despite their shifting identities, East Asia’s mariners sought to anchor their activities to stable legitimacies and diplomatic traditions found outside the system, but outsiders, even those armed with the latest military technology, could never fully impose their values or plans on these often mercurial agents. With its multilateral perspective of a world in flux, this volume offers fresh, wide-ranging narratives of the “rise of the West” or “the Great Divergence.” European mariners, who have often been considered catalysts of globalization, were certainly not the most important actors in East and Southeast Asia. China’s maritime traders carried more in volume and value than any other nation, and the China Seas were key to forging the connections of early globalization—as significant as the Atlantic World and the Indian Ocean basin. Today, as a resurgent China begins to assert its status as a maritime power, it is important to understand the deep history of maritime East Asia.

This book revises earlier views of statecraft reformer Wei Yuan and of Chinese foreign relations during the nineteenth century. Approaching the history of nineteenth-century China from the perspective of Southeast Asian history, the author demonstrates the interaction, from Ch'in times onwards, between China and the Southern ocean or Nan-yang.

A major new interpretation of the Zheng family of merchants and militarists, who dominated the seventeenth-century China Seas.

The notion of "silk roads" conjures images of ancient trade routes, both across land and sea, connecting China with the outside world. Since in recent years there has been something of a paradigm shift in the study of Chinese maritime history, we have chosen the title Beyond the Silk Roads to better convey the most recent trends that take us beyond simple bilateral discussions of trade and economics. Not only scholars within China have taken an interest in this exciting, fast-growing field, but also scholars from across the globe. These include historians as well as archaeologists, anthropologists, geographers, sociologists, and political scientists. Based on new documentary, literary, archaeological, and ethnographic research, the authors explore the multi-dimensional and diverse range of topics that today are subsumed under the heading of maritime history and culture. Utilizing interdisciplinary and multi-linguistic methodologies, the chapters offer cutting-edge discourses on China's role in East Asian maritime history and culture. Chapters include topics on marine archaeology, port cities, sailing routes, trade and cultural networks, nautical technology, folklore, diasporas, law and maritime law, coastal defence, piracy and smuggling, religion and religious cults and many more. It is hoped that this volume will stimulate further research and discussions on maritime history in general and on Asian maritime history in particular.