2010/06/01 by Antony, Robert J. · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Maritime Security and History #Asian Studies and History #Chinese history and philosophy
paper · doi:10.5790/hongkong/9789888028115.001.0001
openalex publication_date 2010/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Piracy and smuggling are as great a problem today as they were several hundreds of years ago. The studies in this book describe and analyze piracy and smuggling in the Greater China Seas region from the sixteenth century to the present. Because piracy and smuggling involve complex historical processes that are still evolving, to fully understand contemporary problems it is important to place them in larger historical and comparative perspectives. The essays in this book add to the scholarship on East and Southeast Asian history, and in particular to the maritime history of the region we call the Greater China Seas. This is the first book to analyze the whole region from Japan to Southeast Asia as a single, integrated historical and geographical area. The book departs from the standard terra centered histories to place the seas at the center rather than at the margins of our inquiries. By focusing on the water we are better able to stitch together the diverse histories of Japan, China, and Southeast Asia. The chapters in this anthology show that, although often dismissed as historically unimportant, pirates and smugglers have in fact played significant roles in the development of the modern world.