From Illusion to Empire: Chuang on The Creation of the Chinese Economy

With the largest navy, the most advanced technology, and unprecedented agricultural productivity, the Ming Dynasty remained the most extensive and powerful political structure in the world. In every way it matched and surpassed Europe, and the question of China’s “failed” transition to capitalism (known as “Needham’s Paradox”) would become a sort of initiatory riddle for future scholars of the region. Pereira had arrived in the midst of the Ming’s deterioration, caused in part by the Portuguese and Spanish silver industries and the new trade networks of which he was himself a product.