A People’s History of the South China Sea

Why are China and Southeast Asia conventionally understood to exist on separate continents? Geographically, meteorologically, culturally, and economically they have shared common historical experiences. Their interrelations have been mutually transformative over time. Travelers, scholars, seafarers, nationalists, political organizers, and religious leaders who resided along the shores of Asia’s “Water Frontier” perceived that they lived in an interconnected world that was not bound by national borders. There is a large literature on the “Global South,” but little attention has been paid to the “Asian South” as a category of historical analysis. My new work seeks to conceptualize the Asian South as a “middle ground” of expanding colonial frontiers (including the Chinese and Japanese frontiers) and emerging nation-states as well as a maritime economy that was integral to the emergence of the modern world. In this discussion, I will focus on the East Asian monsoon and the ways it affected social disputation.

Melissa Macauley is a Professor of History at Northwestern University. She specializes in late imperial and modern Chinese history from 1500 to 1958. Her research focuses on the interrelated history of southeastern China and Southeast Asia; colonialism and imperialism in East and Southeast Asia; and legal culture in Chinese social history. Her recent book, Distant Shores: Colonial Encounters on China’s Maritime Frontier, was published by Princeton University Press in 2021 and was awarded the Bentley Book Prize from the World History Association in 2022. Her first book, Social Power and Legal Culture: Litigation Masters in Late Imperial China, was published by Stanford University Press. She currently is working on a new book, tentatively titled A People’s History of the South China Sea.