Global Powers in South China Sea

The linguistic skills and historical knowledge required to write global economic history at this level of sophistication are rare. The author possesses all the qualifications required to have contributed an original and profound comprehension of political relations between states and their communities of merchants engaged in long distance commerce between Qing China and Western Europe before the Industrial Revolution. - Patrick Karl O’Brien , FBA former Director of the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, UK. Global history has been enriched by the ‘Great Divergence’ concept, but much of it remains theoretical and speculative. With this global approach to the history of the South China Sea region, Manuel Perez-Garcia provides a data-rich analysis drawn from both European and Chinese sources that offers new perspectives on the fate of empires that avoids both the biases of Eurocentrism and Sinocentrism. This is a fine example of true global history. - Jan de Vries , University of California at Berkeley, USA. This book offers a new perspective on Qing economic and political practices, as well as the dynasty’s geopolitical tensions, through a local lens on foreign trade networks. Employing a reciprocal comparative framework, it illuminates the deep structural interconnections between Western and Chinese market systems. By utilising the innovative GECEM Database, which cross-references Western and Chinese primary sources to mine new archival data, the study constitutes a methodological advance that presents novel approaches beyond the Great Divergence debate. It is an essential reading for specialists in global economic history, sinology, East Asian studies, economics and international relations. Manuel Perez-Garcia is a Tenured Professor at the Department of History, School of Humanities, at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China). He was awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant under the Horizon 2020 / EU Funding for Research & Innovation Program to lead the GECEM Project (Global Encounters between China and Europe, www.gecem.eu), which examines market integration between China and Europe. He is the founder and director of the Global History Network in China (GHNC) (www.globalhistorynetwork.com)