Part One: Maritime East Asia in Historical Perspective
1. Commodity and Market: Structure of the Long-distance Trade in the East Asian Seas and Beyond Prior to the Early Nineteenth Century 3
Part Two: Between "Us" and "Them"
2. Maritime Frontiers, Territorial Expansion and Haifang (Coastal Defense) during the Late Ming and High Qing
3. Trade, the Sea Prohibition and the "Folangji", 1513-50
4. Treaties, Politics and the Limits of Local Diplomacy in Fuzhou in the Early 1850s
5. "Shooting the Eagle": Lin Changyi's Agony in the Wake of the Opium War
6. Information and Knowledge: Qing China's Perceptions of the Maritime World in the Eighteenth Century
Part Three: Pushing the Traditional Boundaries
7. The Changing Landscape in Rural South Fujian in Late-Ming Times: A Story of the "Little People" (1)
8. Gentry-Merchants and Peasant-Peddlers in Offshore Trading Activities, 1522-66: A Story of the "Little People" (2)
9. Managing Maritime Affairs in Late-Ming Times
10. Liturgical Services and Business Fortunes: Chinese Maritime Merchants in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries
11. The Amoy Riots of 1852: Coolie Emigration and Sino-British Relations
Part Four: Transcending Borders
12. Expanding Possibilities: Revisiting the Min-Yue Junk-trade Enterprise on the China Coast and in the Nanyang during the Eighteenth to the Mid-nineteenth Centuries
13. The Case of Chen Yilao: Maritime Trade and Overseas Chinese in Qing Policies, 1717-54
14. "Are These Persons British or Chinese Subjects?": Legal Principles and Ambiguities Regarding the Status of the Straits Chinese as Revealed in the Lee Shun Fah Affair in Amoy, 1847.