社會學與歷史學之間除了持續存在著某些誤解外，能否具有一種既正面又具建設性的相遇呢？關鍵問題在於︰什麼是社會學仍然可以有所補充的──特別是當史學家已成功處理一個類似主題之後？本研究即以十七世紀亞洲海洋史為例來做探討。基於某些不明原因（這也許關係到前現代性），社會學家鮮少投入這個領域。在本研究中，我們試圖中止此等缺席，著手分析1689 年的一個事件，即荷蘭東印度公司艦隊從此不再出現於中國沿海。一般來說，史學家解釋為荷蘭人經濟理性的一次展現。相反地，我們認為這將會涉及到分辨兩種領土觀的必要性，即大陸型與海洋型。歷史學分析（包括史料的發掘與考據在內）不是本研究試圖採用的取徑，這毋寧是一種社會學式類型學的建構。以這樣一種社會學分析的方式，不僅可被應用於分析1689 年的事件，還可進而在理論上探求荷蘭東印度公司何以漸衰、而後結束的一個理由。

Except misunderstandings which continue to exist between the sociology and the history, can these two disciplines have meeting as positive as productive? The problem will be to wonder: what the sociology can still fill more, in particular when the historian treated successfully a similar subject? It is here the case of the maritime history of the 17th century in Asia. For reason unknowns, concerning the pre-modernity maybe, the sociologist works there from time to time. In following research, we try to stop the absence like such, by undertaking the analysis of an event, namely since 1689 the fleet of the VOC consequently does not appear any more in coastal China. In general, the historian sees it as a manifestation of economic rationality of the Dutch. On the contrary, it will be related to, seems to us it, the need for distinction between two visions of territory-civilization, namely the continental type and the maritime type. Rather than in the historical analysis, including the discovery and examination of historical data, the approach which our research tries to adopt is defined by the construction of a sociological typology. In this way, a sociological analysis succeeds not only in applying to the event of 1689, and in conceiving all the more in theory a reason for which the VOC declines gradually and then comes to an end.