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Recovering China's Past on Kenya's Coast
- jfb 16y agoThe treasure fleets were going to be the subject of my thesis, had I stayed in school. I find the idea of finding fourteenth century artifacts from China on (say) Zanzibar one of the coolest things imaginable. I also really like that the ships were abandoned. The cultural turn and dynastic politics required are also really fascinating. The treasure fleets play a role in Kim Stanley Robinson's Years Of Rice And Salt, which is a counterfactual history book that was right in my wheelhouse, much more interesting than German Zombie Nazis take over Mars or what have you.
- bediger 16y agoStudying Zheng He and the reasons for China's deliberate withdrawal from exploration and the outer world seem particularly relevent at this time, especially in the USA. The USA is apparently giving up on manned space flight, we haven't put a human outside earth orbit since 1972, and we're trying to lock down the current economic status quo with copyrights, patents, and "intellectual property". The USA, or at least its current economic elite, has given up on the future.