The Worlds of the Indian Ocean
A Global History
The Worlds of the Indian Ocean Series

Europe's place in history is re-assessed in this first comprehensive history of the ancient world, centering on the Indian Ocean and its role in pre-modern globalization. Philippe Beaujard presents an ambitious and comprehensive global history of the Indian Ocean world, from the earliest state formations to 1500 CE. Supported by a wealth of empirical data, full color maps, plates, and figures, he shows how Asia and Africa dominated the economic and cultural landscape and the flow of ideas in the pre-modern world. This led to a trans-regional division of labor and an Afro-Eurasian world economy. Beaujard questions the origins of capitalism and hints at how this world-system may evolve in the future. The result is a reorienting of world history, taking the Indian Ocean, rather than Europe, as the point of departure. Volume I provides in-depth coverage of the period from the fourth millennium BCE to the sixth century CE.

Prologue: the geography of the Indian Ocean and the navigation; Part I. The Ancient Routes of Trade and Cultural Exchanges and the First States (6th-2nd Millenia BC): Introduction; 1. The birth of the state; 2. Early Bronze Age I in Western Asia and in Egypt (ca. 3000–2700 BC); 3. Early Bronze Age II (ca. 2700–1950 BC); 4. The new spaces of the Middle Bronze Age in Asia and in Egypt (ca.2000–1750 BC) ; 5. The Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600-1100 BC), an Area Unified around the Eastern Mediterranean ; 6. East Asia. From Villages to States (Ca. 5000–1027 BC); 7. The emergence of intermediary spaces; Conclusion: Were there world-sytems during the Bronze Age?; Part II. The Birth of the Afro-Eurasian World-System (1st Millennium BC-1st Century AD): Introduction; 8. The beginnings of the Iron Age; 9. The roads to the Orient; 10. India. The birth of a new core; 11. Southeast Asia, an interface between two oceans; 12. China. From kingdoms to unification; 13. Arabia. Maritime cultures and the rise of the caravan trade; 14. East Africa: the emergence of a pre-Swahili culture on the Azanian coast; 15. The Austronesian expansion and the first Malagasy cultures.

Philippe Beaujard is an Emeritus Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut des Mondes Africains, Paris.