A hundred years before Columbus and his fellow Europeans began making their way to the New World, fleets of giant Chinese junks commanded by the eunuch admiral Zheng He and filled with the empire''s finest porcelains, lacquerware, and silk ventured to the edge of the world''s `four corners.'' It was a time of exploration and conquest, but it ended in a retrenchment so complete that less than a century later, it was a crime to go to sea in a multimasted ship. In When China Ruled the Seas, Louise Levathes takes a fascinating and unprecedented look at this dynamic period in China''s enigmatic history, focusing on China''s rise as a naval power that literally could have ruled the world and at its precipitious plunge into isolation when a new emperor ascended the Dragon Throne.During the brief period from 1405 to 1433, seven epic expeditions brought China''s `treasure ships'' across the China Seas and the Indian Ocean, from Taiwan to the spice islands of Indonesia and the Malabar coast of I
