Timothy Brook’s award-winning Vermeer’s Hat unfolded the early history of globalization, using Vermeer’s paintings to show how objects like beaver hats and porcelain bowls began to circulate around the world. Now he plumbs the mystery of a single artifact that offers new insights into global connections centuries old.

In 2009, an extraordinary map of China was discovered in Oxford’s Bodleian Library—where it had first been deposited 350 years before, then stowed and forgotten for nearly a century. Neither historians of China nor cartography experts had ever seen anything like it. It was so odd that experts would have declared it a fake—yet records confirmed it had been delivered to Oxford in 1659. The “Selden Map,” as it is known, was a puzzle that needing solving.

Brook, a historian of China, set out to explore the riddle. His investigation will lead readers around this elegant, enigmatic work of art, and from the heart of China, via the Southern Ocean, to the court of King James II. In the story of Selden’s map, he reveals for us the surprising links between an English scholar and merchants half a world away, and offers novel insights into the power and meaning that a single map can hold. Brook delivers the same anecdote-rich narrative, intriguing characters, and unexpected historical connections that made Vermeer’s Hat an instant classic.

蔔正民（Timothy Brook），加拿大著名漢學傢。曾任多倫多大學、斯坦福大學、牛津大學等校教授，現為加拿大英屬哥倫比亞大學聖約翰學院院長、曆史教授。蔔正民還是美國明史學會（Society of Ming Studies）半年期刊《明史研究》（Ming Studies）編委會成員。自2008年起，蔔正民成為哈佛大學六捲本《中華帝國史》的主編。蔔正民曾於1975年鞦進入復旦大學，師從文學批評史學者李慶甲教授學習中國古代文學，1977年，他在李約瑟的安排下參與瞭《中國的科學與文明》第七分冊的編寫。

蔔正民著述頗豐且廣受好評，其作品《縱樂的睏惑：明代的商業與文化》（The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China）曾獲美國亞洲研究學會頒發的列文森奬和加拿大曆史學會每五年評選一次的最高曆史學奬項弗朗索瓦-澤維爾·加諾奬，《殺韆刀：中西視野下的淩遲處死》（Death by a Thousand Cuts）曾獲加拿大曆史學會頒發的華萊士·弗格森奬，《維梅爾的帽子》（Vermeer's Hat）則獲得哥倫比亞大學新聞學院和哈佛大學尼曼新聞基金會聯閤頒發的馬剋·林頓曆史奬。2006年，蔔正民獲得古根海姆學者奬。