The Star Raft

Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1988, Cornell University Press, 1989

The Star Raft is Philip’s first book.

Three quarters of a century before Columbus crossed the Atlantic, a fleet of Chinese treasure ships came to the East African coast.  The scale of this landfall was so colossal that it makes the Genoese explorer look like an amateur.  The fleet was called the Star Raft, and its arrival marked the beginning of formal contacts between China and Africa.

For Philip Snow the Star Raft is also a metaphor for the great descents made by China on Africa in our own time.  During the last thirty years the Chinese have worked to nudge Africa out from the European shadow, and have challenged both Western and Soviet interests in independent African states.  As the Western tide recedes, the early contacts are being renewed and strengthened.

Philip Snow examines the human essence of China’s contact with Africa.  How has the Chinese experience of Africa differed from that of the West?  Have the Chinese behaved better than Westerners in Africa, or worse?  In either case, why?

Philip Snow offers original and important conclusions about a major phenomenon of which most Westerners are unaware.

‘It is truly a joy to encounter a scholarly work of such depth and breadth that is also superbly written for both the academic and lay audience.’

Allen S. Whiting, The China Quarterly

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