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Conflict and Commerce in Maritime East Asia: The Zheng Family and the Shaping of the Modern World, c. 1620–1720 by Xing Hang (review)

Xing Hang’s Conflict and Commerce in Maritime East Asia is one of the most comprehensive examinations of the Zheng family and their organization at the height of their power. The Zheng family was the head of an organization with a diverse membership that regularly engaged in large-scale commercial, criminal, diplomatic, and military actions. Through these activities, the organization gained the power to assert itself on the global scale in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, challenging existing powers ranging from the Qing rulers to the Dutch East India Company, also known as the VOC. Due to its power and influence in a key part of the world during a major period of political and economic expansion, studying the Zheng family can provide key insights into how those processes unfolded. Just as the Zheng organization defied categorization by acting as criminals, merchants, soldiers, and rulers, so too can Conflict and Commerce in Maritime East Asia be hard to describe because of the range of topics it covers. Hang makes a great contribution to the field of world history by covering in great detail and with a variety of sources how the Zheng organization fit into a global story of increased state-building and international commerce. One of Hang’s goals is to bridge what he sees as several historiographical gaps in the historical discourse about the Zheng