Book Reviews
Book Reviews Robert J. Antony and Angela Schotten- the maritime histories of Japan, Taiwan, hammer (eds.) Beyond the Silk Roads: Vietnam, Spain, Portugal, France, the New Discourses on China’s Role in East Philippines, and many other localities Asian Maritime History. Wiesbaden, both past and present. The theme of Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag, www. interconnected histories is consistently harrassowitz-verlag.de, 2017. ix+222 strong and well-argued throughout this pp., illustrations, maps, tables, notes, volume. index. Euro 68,00€, hardback; ISBN Robert Antony’s opening chapter 978-3-447-10944-4. establishes a consistent thematic blue- print for the rest of the volume by exam- Beyond the Silk Roads: New Discourses ining recent historiographical shifts in on China’s Role in East Asian Maritime maritime and global history in the con- History is one of the latest entries in the text of East Asia. The thematic heart of rapidly-expanding field of Asian-Pacif- the volume is Sanjay Subrahmanyam’s ic maritime history. Derived from the seminal 1997 article “Connected His- 2015 “Beyond the Silk Road” confer- tories: Notes Towards a Reconfigura- ence in Shanghai, this volume is a cu- tion of Early Modern Eurasia,” which rated collection of eleven revised es- argues forcefully for “connected,” “en- says, including an introductory chapter tangled,” or “shared” history, instead of and conclusion, representing a broad the more traditional comparative histo- cross-section of times, places, and ry (3). Antony also centres the Chinese themes related to East Asia’s maritime maritime world on the South China Sea history. The book is very well-orga- in particular, and provides a general nized, thoroughly researched, and pro- history of its importance to China and vides a strong, comprehensive over- the world while avoiding an over-focus view of some of the most important on Sino-Western encounters common research taking place in this emerging to many global historians.
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