Maritime History of East Asia

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.

Masashi Haneda is Professor of History at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia and Executive Vice President of the University of Tokyo. Formerly, he served as Director of the Institute of Oriental Culture (2009) and as Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia (2010–2012) at the University of Tokyo. His main research topics include global/world history, history of the East Asian maritime world, Islamic urban studies, Iranian history of the 16th–18th centuries and studies of European travel accounts on Persia. He has published a number of academic works in Japanese as well as in English, French and Chinese. He has received many prestigious awards, including the Mainichi Award for Publishing Culture (2002), the Asia-Pacific Award (2006), the Farabi International Award, Iran (2010), the Silver Award of Asia-Pacific Publishers (2010) and the Shiju Hosho (medal of honor with purple ribbon; 2017).