"This groundbreaking book traces the rich and perilous history of the ships and sailors that launched the global economy. The line of navigation between Asia and the Americas, the Manila galleons first set sail from the Philippines in 1565, remaining the lifeblood of world trade until the last...

Six years after President Xi Jinping outlined the idea of the Silk Road economic belt during his visit to the University of Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan, followed a month later by the announcement of the construction of the twenty-first century maritime Silk Road, the Belt and Road Initiative has...