This volume investigates the emergence and spread of maritime commerce and interconnectivity across the Indian Ocean World-the world's first "global economy"-from a longue duree perspective. Spanning from antiquity to the nineteenth century, these essays move beyond the usual focus on geographical sub-regions or thematic aspects to foreground inter- and trans-regional connections. Focusing on the role of religion in the expansion of commerce and exchange across the region, as well as on technology and knowledge transfer, volume II covers shipbuilding and navigation technologies, porcelain production, medicinal knowledge, and mules as a commodity and means of transportation.

This volume investigates the emergence and spread of maritime commerce and interconnectivity across the Indian Ocean World-the world's first "global economy"-from a longue duree perspective. Spanning from antiquity to the nineteenth century, these essays move beyond the usual focus on geographical sub-regions or thematic aspects to foreground inter- and trans-regional connections. Analyzing multi-lingual records and recent archaeological findings, volume I examines mercantile networks, the role of merchants, routes, and commodities, as well as diasporas and port cities.

Combining strikingly new scholarship by art historians, historians, and ethnomusicologists, this interdisciplinary volume illuminates trade ties within East Asia, and from East Asia outwards, in the years 1550 to 1800. While not encyclopedic, the selected topics greatly advance our sense of this trade picture. Throughout the book, multi-part trade structures are excavated; the presence of European powers within the Asian trade nexus features as part of this narrative. Visual goods are highlighted, including lacquerwares, paintings, prints, musical instruments, textiles, ivory sculptures, unfired ceramic portrait figurines, and Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Southeast Asian ceramic vessels. These essays underscore the significance of Asian industries producing multiples, and the rhetorical charge of these goods, shifting in meaning as they move. Everyday commodities are treated as well; for example, the trans-Pacific trade in contraband mercury, used in silver refinement, is spelled out in detail. Building reverberations between merchant networks, trade goods, and the look of the objects themselves, this richly-illustrated book brings to light the Asian trade engine powering the early modern visual cultures of East and Southeast Asia, the American colonies, and Europe.

OEkonomische Dynamiken, politische Transformationen, internationale Vernetzung sowie die Kommunikation durch neue Medien sind Indikatoren einer "Globalisierung", die heute viele Bereiche des Lebens erfasst. Doch bedeutet eine solche Expansion und Internationalisierung wirtschaftlicher Prozesse, technischer Entwicklungen und politischer Ordnungen, dass "globales Denken" als (selbst)kritischer Diskurs zum Tragen kommt? In kritischem Kontrast zu Globalisierungsstrategien fragen die Beitrage dieses Bandes danach, inwiefern der Bezug auf globale Zusammenhange die gewohnten Zugange und Methoden der Wissenschaft herausfordert und verandert. Nicht "Globalisierung" als Erfolgsstrategie, sondern "globales Denken" als kritischer Anspruch steht im Zentrum der UEberlegungen dieses Tagungsbandes.