"You can read this book as an exciting novel full of pirates, swashbuckling characters, beheadings, treachery, and battles on land and sea--a novel that just happens to be true--or as a revelatory look at the little-known first war between China and the West, and window into one of the biggest unsolved questions of world history: why Europe rather than China colonized the world from the time of Columbus onward. Either way, you will be sorry when you reach the last page."--Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse

"With arresting anecdote, colorful detail, and all the excitement of a contemporary novel, Andrade reconfigures the debate between revisionists and neotraditionalists on the question of whether, and to what extent, Europe's early modern preeminence reflected technological and military superiority over Asia. This book's analysis is as original as it is convincing."--Victor Lieberman, University of Michigan

"Based on impressive readings in Chinese and Dutch sources, Lost Colony examines fascinating interpretive issues on the changing nature of military power in various parts of the early modern world. Strong and important, this book tells a good story."--John E. Wills, Jr., author of 1688: A Global History

"This engaging and detailed book seeks middle ground in a longstanding debate regarding the alleged exceptionalism of European warfare. Examining a key conflict between Asian and European forces, Andrade opens a window on the Dutch colonial endeavor in Asia and its often symbiotic relationship with Chinese southern ventures, explaining how, with grit and luck, the Chinese gained Taiwan by successfully adapting and counteracting the military techniques of their opponents."--Michael Laffan, Princeton University