24 - China and the Sea in Literature and (Mis)Perception, 1644–1839

Summary

The year 1949 is notable in the study of maritime history. It was the year Fernand Braudel (1902–85) published his canonical volumes The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II.¹ Braudel was one of the most gifted and celebrated maritime historians in the last century and, no doubt, one of the most influential pioneers to make the indisputable linkage between human progress and the sea.² In the words of Thomas Glick, his work is a ‘breathtakingly grand vision of Mediterranean history in which all phenomena are viewed in a spatial framework’.³ Braudel’s academic contributions require no further introduction in this chapter. After his work was published and his ideas became popularized, the academic landscape, or seascape, of oceanic history went through dramatic changes. Not only was the Mediterranean portrayed as an arena that facilitated trans-regional exchanges and inter-cultural interactions but so were the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. As a consequence, the histories of the countries attached to these sea spaces were significantly rewritten throughout the second half of the twentieth century.⁴ China was surely no exception. By then, Chinese historians were interested not only in weaving a territorial-centred history of China but also in formulating a sea-facing historical approach to examining its history. In addition to the dynastic rise and fall of a series of Chinese empires, research topics encompassing voyages, shipbuilding, port cities, overseas Chinese, and so forth have attracted a sizeable number of scholars in the field over the past few decades. Among these scholars, Wang Gungwu has tirelessly promoted the importance of analysing Chinese history from a maritime perspective.⁵ Even though it is hard to judge whether Wang’s scholarship was influenced by the work of Fernand Braudel, despite the fact the former repeatedly paid homage to the latter,⁶ it is evident that these two academic giants shared a similar view on the importance of framing, writing, and presenting the human and natural pasts of our oceans and seas over time.⁷