Strangers at the Heavenly Court

This open access book examines the first modern diplomatic contact between Europe and East Asia: the 1517 Portuguese embassy to China. The experience did not end well, for in 1521, the Ming Court decided to cut off relations, and a battle broke out between the Guangdong and Portuguese fleets. This work seeks to explain why this happened. Making extensive use of both Chinese and Western archival sources, it proposes a new interpretation—one that breaks with the traditional “clash of civilizations” viewpoint and focuses instead on the diversity of actors and the complex relationships between them.