When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433 - Softcover

Levathes, Louise

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195112075 ISBN 13: 9780195112078

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1997

Synopsis

Drawing on eye-witness accounts, official Ming histories, and African, Arab, and Indian sources, Levathes offers a stunning portrait of the rise and fall of China's great navy--one hundred years before Columbus--boasting the largest wooden boats ever built, technically superior vessels that predated European ships by centuries. She sheds new light on the historical and cultural context in which this great navy thrived, as well as the perception of other cultures toward this little understood empire at the time. Beautifully illustrated and engagingly written, When China Ruled the Seas is the fullest picture yet of the early Ming Dynasty and its extraordinary navy.

About this title

About the Author

Louise Levathes was a staff writer for National Geographic for ten years and writes for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications. In 1990, she was a visiting scholar at The Johns Hopkins Center for Chinese and American Studies at Nanjing University, Jiangsu, China. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195112075
• ISBN 13: 9780195112078
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256