The surroundings of the Asian seas have nurtured some of the oldest civilizations in the world. Connected by the ocean, for hundreds of years, coastal residents intermittently engaged with each other in various forms.
Author Kuo-tung, Chen’s study focuses on economics and trade. The 17th and 18th Centuries in the early Qing receive emphasis, then extending earlier and later, in attempt to use a broader temporal framework to discover the traces of Chinese engagement in maritime activities.

This study contains 15 essays arranged in chronological order of their content. There are evidentiary studies and analytical studies. Outside of economics and trade, they also involve visits between people and cultural ehange. Readers may already be familiar with some issues such as Cheng Ho’s expeditions; other issues take more attention for understanding, such as the formation of Qing maritime trade policy and the problems arising from trade. Open to the table of contents, open the pages, and you can know the great and small stories that happened in the East Asian oceans in the last millennium.