In Asian Waters

Oceanic Worlds from Yemen to Yokohama

Eric Tagliacozzo

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780691264561, 9780691146829
• eBook ISBN: 9780691235646
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Economic History
• Index: History

A sweeping account of how the sea routes of Asia have transformed a vast expanse of the globe over the past five hundred years, powerfully shaping the modern world

In the centuries leading up to our own, the volume of traffic across Asian sea routes—an area stretching from East Africa and the Middle East to Japan—grew dramatically, eventually making them the busiest in the world. The result was a massive circulation of people, commodities, religion, culture, technology, and ideas. In this book, Eric Tagliacozzo chronicles how the seas and oceans of Asia have shaped the history of the largest continent for the past half millennium, leaving an indelible mark on the modern world in the process.

Paying special attention to migration, trade, the environment, and cities, In Asian Waters examines the long history of contact between China and East Africa, the spread of Hinduism and Buddhism across the Bay of Bengal, and the intertwined histories of Islam and Christianity in the Philippines. The book illustrates how India became central to the spice trade, how the Indian Ocean became a "British lake" between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, and how lighthouses and sea mapping played important roles in imperialism. The volume ends by asking what may happen if China comes to rule the waves of Asia, as Britain once did.

A novel account showing how Asian history can be seen as a whole when seen from the water, In Asian Waters presents a voyage into a past that is still alive in the present.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• A Note on Languages
• 1. South from Nagasaki, West from Hormuz
• Part I. Maritime Connections: Preface: In Asian Waters
• Part II. Bodies of Water: Preface: The Imbricated Histories of Two Seas
• Part III. Religion on the Tides: Preface: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity in Asian Waters
• Part IV. Cities and the Sea: Preface: Urbanism Connects: The Life of Asian Cities
• Part V. The Bounty of the Oceans: Preface: The Environmental History of Asian Seas
• Part VI. Technologies of the Sea: Preface: The Technological Imperative in the Maritime History of Asia
• List of Appendix Documents
• Appendix A: Base Chronologies for Asia’s Seas
• Appendix B: Written-Down Oral Histories of the Swahili Coasts
• Appendix C: Fieldwork Excerpt from Sana’a: An Arab Herbalist
• Appendix D: Indian Spice Traders in India and Malaysia
• Appendix E: Dutch East Indies Regulations with Local Maritime States
• Appendix F: Chinese Marine Goods Traders in East and Southeast Asia
• Appendix G: Chinese Marine Products Newspaper Clipping, Taipei, Taiwan
• Bibliography
• Index