"Instead of addressing Chinese history through the usual land-based perspective, the city of Quanzhou is envisioned as a space where trade and cultures have created a specific blend that can showcase Quanzhou as a city open to diversities. In this construction, the link between geography, anthropology, economics and history is carefully chartered, allowing us to grasp how this specific blend of Chinese culture, influenced by sea trade and cultural exchanges through oceanic commerce, has been able to develop through centuries. A work one cannot miss when exploring Chinese history and the past and present silk routes narrative."-Dr. Khal Torabully, Franco-Mauritian semiologist, poet, founder of the House of Wisdom (Fez-Granada) and co-author of academic bestseller Coolitude
List of Figures - Acknowledgments - List of Abbreviations - Dr. Doudou Diene: Foreword: Zayton/Quanzhou-Ground Zero of the Maritime Silk Roads - Preface - Zayton as a Crucial Harbor and World Emporium in Maritime Trade - Historic Relics Witnessed the Prosperity of Maritime Trade (1000-1400) - The Diversity of Maritime Culture in Quanzhou - Historical Records About Quanzhou and Maritime Exchange - Trade and Immigration Along Maritime Trade Routes - The Prosperity of Ancient Maritime Quanzhou and Its Enlightenment - KhalTorabully:Quanzhou and Ibn Battuta-The Living Testimony of the Silk Routes - Appendix: A Brief Introduction to Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-Yuan China.
Qiang Wang (PhD candidate, City University of Macau) is currently Associate Professor of Liming University/Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai and formerly Research Associate in the English Department, University of California, Irvine (2013-2014).