Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai

Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai PDF Author: Tonio Andrade
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 082485277X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
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.

Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai

Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai PDF Author: Tonio Andrade
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 082485277X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

War, Trade and Piracy in the China Seas (1622-1683)

War, Trade and Piracy in the China Seas (1622-1683) PDF Author: Weichung Cheng
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900425353X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 389

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Book Description
Approaching its demise, the Ming imperial administration enlisted members of the Cheng family as mercenaries to help in the defense of the coastal waters of Fukien. Under the leadership of Cheng Chih-lung, also known as Nicolas Iquan, and with the help of the local gentry, these mercenaries became the backbone of the empire’s maritime defense and the protectors of Chinese commercial interests in the East and South China Seas. The fall of the Ming allowed Cheng Ch’eng-kung—alias Coxinga—and his sons to create a short-lived but independent seaborne regime in China’s southeastern coastal provinces that competed fiercely, if only briefly, with Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and English merchants during the early stages of globalization.

Coxinga and the Fall of the Ming Dynasty

Coxinga and the Fall of the Ming Dynasty PDF Author: Jonathan Clements
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0752473824
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
This is the fantastic true story of the infamous pirate; Coxinga who became king of Taiwan and was made a god - twice.

The Military Collapse of China's Ming Dynasty, 1618-44

The Military Collapse of China's Ming Dynasty, 1618-44 PDF Author: Kenneth M. Swope
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134462093
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
This book examines the military collapse of China’s Ming Dynasty to a combination of foreign and domestic foes. The Ming’s defeat was a highly surprising development, not least because as recently as in the 1590s the Ming had managed to defeat a Japanese force considered to be perhaps the most formidable of its day when the latter attempted to subjugate Korea en-route to a planned invasion of China. In contrast to conventional explanations for the Ming’s collapse, which focus upon political and socio-economic factors, this book shows how the military collapse of the Ming state was intimately connected to the deterioration of the personal relationship between the Ming throne and the military establishment that had served as the cornerstone of the Ming military renaissance of the previous decades. Moreover, it examines the broader process of the militarization of late Ming society as a whole to arrive at an understanding of how a state with such tremendous military resources and potential could be defeated by numerically and technologically inferior foes. It concludes with a consideration of the fall of the Ming in light of contemporary conflicts and regime changes around the globe, drawing attention to climatological factors and developments outside state control. Utilizing recently released archival materials, this book adds a much needed piece to the puzzle of the collapse of the Ming Dynasty in China.

The Lost Samurai

The Lost Samurai PDF Author: Stephen Turnbull
Publisher: Frontline Books
ISBN: 1526758997
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
“An inherently fascinating, impressively well written, exceptionally informative, and meticulously detailed history” of Japanese overseas mercenaries (Midwest Book Review). The Lost Samurai reveals the greatest untold story of Japan’s legendary warrior class, which is that for almost a hundred years Japanese samurai were employed as mercenaries in the service of the kings of Siam, Cambodia, Burma, Spain and Portugal, as well as by the directors of the Dutch East India Company. The Japanese samurai were used in dramatic assault parties, as royal bodyguards, as staunch garrisons and as willing executioners. As a result, a stereotypical image of the fierce Japanese warrior developed that had a profound influence on the way they were regarded by their employers. While the Southeast Asian kings tended to employ samurai on a long-term basis as palace guards, their European employers usually hired them on a temporary basis for specific campaigns. Also, whereas the Southeast Asian monarchs tended to trust their well-established units of Japanese mercenaries, the Europeans, while admiring them, also feared them. In every European example a progressive shift in attitude may be discerned from initial enthusiasm to great suspicion that the Japanese might one day turn against them, as illustrated by the long-standing Spanish fear of an invasion of the Philippines by Japan accompanied by a local uprising. During the 1630s, when Japan chose isolation rather than engagement with Southeast Asia, it left these fierce mercenaries stranded in distant countries never to return: lost samurai indeed!

Mao's Road to Power

Mao's Road to Power PDF Author: Stuart Schram
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317515889
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1265

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Book Description
This eighth volume covers the period 1942 to 1945 when Mao asserted his status as the incarnation and symbol of the Chinese Revolution and the sinification of Marxism-Leninism.

Early Modern East Asia

Early Modern East Asia PDF Author: Kenneth M. Swope
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315282798
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
This book presents a great deal of new primary research on a wide range of aspects of early modern East Asia. Focusing primarily on maritime connections, the book explores the importance of international trade networks, the implications of technological dissemination, and the often unforeseen consequences of missionary efforts. It demonstrates the benefi ts of a global history approach, outlining the complex interactions between Western traders and Asian states and entrepreneurs. Overall, the book presents much interesting new material on this complicated and understudied period. .

文淵聚珍

文淵聚珍 PDF Author: University of Toronto. Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description


Chinese History

Chinese History PDF Author: Endymion Porter Wilkinson
Publisher: Harvard Univ Asia Center
ISBN: 9780674002494
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1220

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Book Description
Endymion Wilkinson's bestselling manual of Chinese history has long been an indispensable guide to all those interested in the civilization and history of China. In this latest edition, now in a bigger format, its scope has been dramatically enlarged by the addition of one million words of new text. Twelve years in the making, the new manual introduces students to different types of transmitted, excavated, and artifactual sources from prehistory to the twentieth century. It also examines the context in which the sources were produced, preserved, and received, the problems of research and interpretation associated with them, and the best, most up-to-date secondary works. Because the writing of history has always played a central role in Chinese politics and culture, special attention is devoted to the strengths and weaknesses of Chinese historiography.

The Qing Opening to the Ocean

The Qing Opening to the Ocean PDF Author: Gang Zhao
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824837924
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
Did China drive or resist the early wave of globalization? Some scholars insist that China contributed nothing to the rise of the global economy that began around 1500. Others have placed China at the center of global integration. Neither side, though, has paid attention to the complex story of China’s maritime policies. Drawing on sources from China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and the West, this important new work systematically explores the evolution of imperial Qing maritime policy from 1684 to 1757 and sets its findings in the context of early globalization. Gang Zhao argues that rather than constrain private maritime trade, globalization drove it forward, linking the Song and Yuan dynasties to a dynamic world system. As bold Chinese merchants began to dominate East Asian trade, officials and emperors came to see private trade as the solution to the daunting economic and social challenges of the day. The ascent of maritime business convinced the Kangzi emperor to open the coast to international trade, putting an end to the tribute trade system. Zhao’s study details China’s unique contribution to early globalization, the pattern of which differs significantly from the European experience. It offers impressive insights into the rise of the Asian trade network, the emergence of Shanghai as Asia’s commercial hub, and the spread of a regional Chinese diaspora. To understand the place of China in the early modern world, how modernity came to China, and early globalization and the rise of the Asian trade network, The Qing Opening to the Ocean is essential reading.