Secondary Cities and Urban Networking in the Indian Ocean Realm, c. 1400-1800
, by Hall, Kenneth R.; Argo, Charles; Chaffee, John; Gordon, Stewart; Green, Alexandra; Heitzman, James; Lambourn, Elizabeth; Morillo, Stephen; Spaulding, Jay; Swope, Kenneth M.; Wheeler, Charles; Whitmore, John K.- ISBN: 9780739128350 | 0739128353
- Cover: Paperback
- Copyright: 8/28/2008
With the closure of the overland Silk Road in the fourteenth century following the collapse of the Mongol empire, the Indian Ocean provided the remaining vital link for wider cultural, political, and societal integrations prior to the Western colonial presence. Collectively, the studies in Secondary Cities and Urban Networking in the Indian Ocean Realm, c. 1400-1800 explore the history of non-metropolitan urban settings, from the Ottoman Empire and the African coastline at the mouth of the Red Sea in the west to China in the east. This was an age of heightened international commercial exchange that predated the European arrival, which in the Indian Ocean paired Islamic expansionism and political authority, and, alternately, in the case of mainland Southeast Asia, partnered Buddhism with new centralizing monarchies.