Ghosts and Religious Life in Early China By Mu-Chou Poo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 350 pp. £75.00 (cloth)

tion, Ma’s work opens up a valuable window into the maritime world of Shandong and Northeast Asia, which has been largely overlooked in the historiography of maritime China. It provides a necessary corrective to the overwhelming focus upon the southeastern coast. Perhaps Ma could have offered a broader view in temporal terms. Many of the examples that he raises of continuity from Yuan to Ming apply only to the early Ming. Over the long term, “Japanese” piracy did become increasingly multiethnic, with Chinese constituting at least a plurality of many predatory bands, bands which were, indeed, increasingly formed in reaction to the tightening of the sea ban. Similarly, land journeys and the Grand Canal eventually replaced the sea route for Korean and other tributary embassies, and grain shipments. In this sense, the Yuan–Ming transition appears to be a much greater rupture, characterized by an overall withdrawal of the Chinese state from the sea lanes. This excellent study would certainly be strengthened if Ma addressed these issues in greater depth.