Zheng He: China and the Oceans in the Early Ming Dynasty, 1405-1433 (Library of World Biography Series)
by Edward L. Dreyer
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Book Summary Information
Author: Edward L. DreyerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2006-05-13
ISBN: 0321084438
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Longman
Book Reviews of Zheng He: China and the Oceans in the Early Ming Dynasty, 1405-1433 (Library of World Biography Series)
Book Review: Found it excellent
Summary: 5 Stars
First, although I have studied much of Chinese history, I claim no particular expertise in the Ming Dynasty or the history of Zheng He's voyages. However, I've been looking for a source to fix that for sometime and therefore read and liked this book. The author does a good job of sticking to the evidence and weighing the sources of evidence carefully. He makes a strong attempt to put the voyages, as well as the cessation of the voyages, and their motivations in historical context and argues things well. At one point, for instance, while trying to discuss the size of Zheng He's largest ships he carefully considers the sorts of ships that could and could not travel the river routes in China that the fleet traveled to get from Nanjing to the ocean. Although he concludes the largest ships were possibly the largest wooden vessels ever constructed, he also concludes that they were probably not nearly as large as some have claimed and not capable of some of the more fanciful sailing through hazardous areas that some authors have credited them with. One thing that surprised me about this work is how much about these voyages and their routes are actually known, particularly when some authors have claimed our lack of knowledge about them allows for extremely fanciful claims about their routes and accomplishments. All in all, although I have not studied these voyages in depth, I found this to be a good place to start if one wishes an account that carefully weighs what is and is not known about these voyages.
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