Anyone who has studied China's maritime history owes a lot to the late professor of Chinese history at UC Davis Lo Jung-Pang (1912–81) and it is truly a blessing that this manuscript, which was completed in 1957, has been published. Every page breathes Lo's characteristic passion for China's maritime legacy. We should also be grateful to Bruce A. Elleman for his efforts in bringing this manuscript to the attention of the public. Its publication is also timely, given China's contemporary maritime policies aimed at re-establishing itself as an Asian and global maritime power (see Thomas M. Kane, Chinese grand strategy and maritime power, 2002; Yves-Heng Lim, China's naval power: An offensive realist approach, 2014).

Lo painstakingly describes the historical ascendancy of China as a commercial and naval maritime power. He particularly focuses on the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, a period of roughly 500 years during which China's maritime activities experienced an unsurpassed boom. In the initial chapters Lo charts the ancient foundations on which later maritime exploits were built. He does not consider China's maritime activity as a static and isolated phenomenon, but carefully examines the range of factors which played a decisive role in its development and which foreshadowed the unprecedented boom in sea power during the Song dynasty. Useful tables display such aspects as the rise in the number of cities and demographic transformations within China, and help chart shifts in mentalities. In part 2 the author analyses the intertwined phenomena of the boom in commerce and the build-up of the navy during the Song dynasty, and examines developments in shipbuilding as well as firepower technology. Part 3 deals with the rise of China as an expansionist commercial and naval power under Mongol rule. The author also highlights naval expeditions which have largely remained unexamined. By bringing together the most relevant sources, Lo reconstructs, sometimes on a daily basis, the stories of the main battles that were fought by the multiethnic Yuan navies in wars against Japan, Vietnam and Java. Besides his encyclopedic efforts of historical reconstruction, Lo also explains the reasons why these expeditions were organised in the first place and why at times they were aborted, never to be resumed. Furthermore, he also shows how these formidable, but not always very successful, undertakings laid the foundations for the last heroic epoch of naval expansion and sovereignty in Chinese history, namely the seven long-distance voyages under the command of the eunuch admiral Zheng He. But the Ming naval chapter belongs to Lo's conclusion. For Lo, the Song and Yuan were the real high points of Chinese maritime endeavours, especially also because soon after Zheng He's expeditions the navy was drastically scaled down.

On occasion the author does not seem to be able to detach himself completely from his background, as when he writes about heroic resilience or inventiveness as characteristics of the Chinese. This, however, does not detract from the quality of Lo's work, which together with J.V.G. Mills and Joseph Needham's Science and civilisation in China (vol. 4, part 3) was fundamental in highlighting technological, military and commercial aspects of China's maritime legacy. In fact, one could say that every historian of naval China should consider this book as a starting point for their research journey, as China as a sea power provides an extensive survey of maritime literature, primary sources and scholarly literature in Western languages, as well as in Chinese and Japanese. True, some of the scholarship is somewhat dated, yet this does not devalue the book's status as a treasure trove.

Some references inserted by the editor could, however, have been more carefully selected. It is with a certain degree of consternation that we discover a reference to Gavan [sic] Menzies’ ‘groundbreaking’ bestseller 1421 The year China discovered the world (p. xvi, note 7). Geoffrey Wade, author of the introduction to Lo's book, and other scholars have exposed Menzies’ pseudo-historical scholarship on the issue of Zheng He's voyages (see e.g. http://www.1421exposed.com/index.html). The reference is a disappointing blot on this long-awaited edition of Lo's work.