When China Ruled the Seas

A hundred years before Columbus and his fellow Europeans began making their way to the New World, fleets of giant Chinese `treasure ships' commanded by the eunuch admiral Zheng He ventured to the edge of the world's `four corners'. It was a time of exploration and conquest, but it ended in a retrenchment so complete that less than a century later, it was a crime to go to sea in a multimasted ship.

In When China Ruled the Seas, Louise Levathes draws on eye-witness accounts and official Ming histories to offer a fascinating and unprecedented look at this dynamic period in China's enigmatic history.