Rupture, Evolution and Continuity: The Shandong Peninsula in East Asian Maritime History During the Yuan-Ming Transition East Asian Maritime History 16. By Ma Guang. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. xii + 230 pp. €68.00; $92.00

Abstract

Studies of Chinese maritime history have overwhelmingly focused on the southeastern coast, an area roughly comprising the provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong. Some works have extended the focus to the diaspora from this area in Southeast Asia and beyond. In contrast, the extensive northern coastline has occupied a much smaller position in historiography. Yet, its importance to China ’ s maritime development has been severely underestimated. Ma Guang has written the first serious English-language study of this littoral space. In doing so, he seeks to correct the “ Southeast China centrism ” of historiography on the maritime zone (162). Centering his narrative upon the Shandong and Liaodong Peninsulas, which are situated next to the Yellow Sea in close proximity to one another, and containing the inner sea of Bo Hai, he traces their extensive connections with Northeast Asia and the rest of the Chinese coast. He further examines the area ’ s evolution from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, shedding light on both continuities and ruptures in the policies of the terres-trial state under the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. The book contains three distinct but interrelated components. The first section deals with trade and tribute missions. Ma shows that commercial exchange constituted an important component of Shandong ’ s maritime connections during the Yuan period. Domestic coastal routes flourished, as products such as ceramics from kilns in Hebei traveled from Dengzhou, Penglai, and elsewhere in coastal Shandong to southern ports, such as Quanzhou, for re-export