On January 29, 2021, Eric Tagliacozzo, the John Stambaugh Professor of History at Cornell University, gave a talk entitled “Blue-Water Horizon: One Thousand Years of the Sino-Southeast Asian Embrace.” Dr. Tagliacozzo’s presentation took a macro-historical look at how diasporas, trade, and networks developed in the “adolescence” of Sino-Southeast Asian contact, in the time-period roughly covered by the thousand years between 600 and 1600 CE.
He examined the growth and eventual flourishing of trade and migration interactions, especially through the power of commercial networks focused on certain specific commodities, by focusing on export ceramics heading south, and marine biota heading north. Using this novel evidence, the talk showed how Southeast Asia was the pivot between the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean: two vast “blue-water horizons.”