Southern Seas: Chinese Migrant Worlds in the Age of Global Empire

A sweeping new history of Chinese diasporas in Southeast Asia.

Lying at the center of trade routes connecting China to the Indian Ocean, the Southern Seas have always been a cauldron of diasporas. For centuries, Chinese migrants have crossed these waters. We know them chiefly as protagonists of trade and commerce—and also as a people defined by their ties to a distant homeland.

In Southern Seas, historian Rachel Leow tells a different story. Through the lives of intellectuals, feminists, poet...