PART I Escaping from National Narratives:The New Global History in China and Japan -- Global History, the Role of Scientific Discovery and the 'Needham Question': Europe and China 16th to 19th Centuries -- Encounter and Co-existence: Portugal and Ming China 1511-1610 - Rethinking the Dynamics of a Century of Global-Local Relations -- Challenging National Narratives: On the Origins of Sweet Potato in China as Global Commodity during the Early Modern Period -- Economic Depression and the Silver Question in Nineteenth-Century China -- Kaiiki-shi and World/Global History: A Japanese Perspective -- PART II Trade Networks and Maritime Expansion in East Asian Studies -- Structure and Transformation of the Ming Tribute Trade System -- Nanban Trade and Shuinsen Trade in 16th and 17th Century Japan -- The Jewish Presence in China and Japan in the Early Modern Period: A Social Representation -- Quantifying Ocean Currents as Story Models: Global Oceanic Currents and their Way into Global Navigation -- PART III Circulation of Technology and Commodities in the Atlantic and Pacific -- Global History and the History of Consumption: Congruence and Divergence -- Mexican Cochineal, Local Technologies and the Rise of Global Trade (16th-19th centuries) -- Social Networks and the Circulation of Technology and Knowledge in the Global Spanish Empire -- Global Commodities in Early Modern Spain -- Big History as a Commodity at Chinese Universities: A Study in Circulation.