新书 | In Asian Waters: Oceanic Worlds from Yemen to Yokohama

本书记录了亚洲的海洋在过去五百年间如何塑造了这个区域的历史，以及如何给现代世界留下了印记——那条从东非和中东延伸至日本的海上通道曾是世界上最繁忙的航线之一，人口、商品、宗教、文化、技术和思想通过这一通道大规模流通。 本书特别关注移民、贸易、环境和城市，作者考察了中国与东非交往的悠久历史、印度教与佛教在孟加拉湾的传播、以及伊斯兰教与基督教在菲律宾交织的历史。本书阐述了印度如何成为香料贸易的中心、英国如何在17和19世纪间成为印度洋的霸主，以及灯塔和海洋测绘在帝国主义扩张中发挥了怎样的作用等。在书的末尾，本书还回应了一个问题：如果中国像英国曾经做的那样统治亚洲，历史会和现在有何不同？

In the centuries leading up to our own, the volume of traffic across Asian sea routes—an area stretching from East Africa and the Middle East to Japan—exploded, eventually making them the busiest in the world. The result was a massive circulation of people, commodities, religion, culture, technology, and ideas. In this book, Eric Tagliacozzo chronicles how the seas and oceans of Asia have shaped the history of the largest continent for the past half millennium, leaving an indelible mark on the modern world in the process.

Paying special attention to migration, trade, the environment, and cities, In Asian Waters examines the long history of contact between China and East Africa; the spread of Hinduism and Buddhism across the Bay of Bengal; and the intertwined histories of Islam and Christianity in the Philippines. The book illustrates how India became central to the spice trade; how the Indian Ocean became a “British lake” between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries; and how lighthouses and sea mapping played important roles in imperialism. The volume ends by asking what may happen if China comes to rule the waves of Asia, as Britain once did.

A novel account showing how Asian history can be seen as a whole when seen from the water, In Asian Waters presents a voyage into a past that is still alive in the present.

Eric Tagliacozzo is the John Stambaugh Professor of History at Cornell University. His many books include Secret Trades, Porous Borders: Smuggling and States along a Southeast Asian Frontier, 1865–1915 and The Longest Journey: Southeast Asians and the Pilgrimage to Mecca.