ABSTRACT

One major consequence of Europe's 'discovery' of Asia during the last decade of the fifteenth century was the publication in Europe of numerous descriptions of Asia written by missionaries and traders who had actually and recently travelled to Asian lands. What began as a stream of information about Asia in the sixteenth century became a virtual deluge during the seventeenth. Seventeenth-century European publications treated almost all parts of Asia much more extensively than had been done in the sixteenth century. By the end of the century China was probably the best known part of Asia to European readers. In many instances the inter-Asian trade brought more profit to the companies than the direct trade to Europe. Commerce in eastern waters was dominated by European ships, in part because the great nations of Asia had no navies able to challenge them effectively and in part because the Chinese and Japanese remained officially unconcerned about overseas commerce.