Recovering China’s Maritime History

Valerie Hansen (Stanley Woodward Professor of History, Yale University)

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Abstract

China’s long history as a powerful agrarian state has distracted many from its very real engagement with the ocean. Its contacts with South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa date back to the year 1000 and even before. Drawing on information from shipwrecks, maps, and descriptions of voyages and foreign lands, this talk traces China’s long engagement with its maritime neighbors, a topic of particular importance given its recent expansion into the South China Sea.

About the speaker

Valerie Hansen teaches world and Chinese history at Yale, where she is the Stanley Woodward Professor of History. She works with both archeological materials and written historical sources. Her most recent book, The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World and Globalization Began (2020), is being translated into fourteen languages, most recently Romanian.

Registration

This webinar will take place online via Zoom. Click here to register .

* The webinar will also be live-streamed on our Facebook page for those that are unable to participate via Zoom.

Chair: Professor Steve Tsang (Director, SOAS China Institute)

Organiser: SOAS China Institute

Contact email: sci@soas.ac.uk