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.

卜正民（Timothy Brook），加拿大著名汉学家。曾任多伦多大学、斯坦福大学、牛津大学等校教授，现为加拿大英属哥伦比亚大学圣约翰学院院长、历史教授。卜正民还是美国明史学会（Society of Ming Studies）半年期刊《明史研究》（Ming Studies）编委会成员。自2008年起，卜正民成为哈佛大学六卷本《中华帝国史》的主编。卜正民曾于1975年秋进入复旦大学，师从文学批评史学者李庆甲教授学习中国古代文学，1977年，他在李约瑟的安排下参与了《中国的科学与文明》第七分册的编写。

卜正民著述颇丰且广受好评，其作品《纵乐的困惑：明代的商业与文化》（The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China）曾获美国亚洲研究学会颁发的列文森奖和加拿大历史学会每五年评选一次的最高历史学奖项弗朗索瓦-泽维尔·加诺奖，《杀千刀：中西视野下的凌迟处死》（Death by a Thousand Cuts）曾获加拿大历史学会颁发的华莱士·弗格森奖，《维梅尔的帽子》（Vermeer's Hat）则获得哥伦比亚大学新闻学院和哈佛大学尼曼新闻基金会联合颁发的马克·林顿历史奖。2006年，卜正民获得古根海姆学者奖。