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 durée perspective. Spanning from antiquity to the nineteenth century, these essays move beyond the usual focus on...

"Hans Holbein's Triumphs (1532-1534), commissioned for the headquarters of the Hanseatic League in London and Kano Naizen's The Portuguese namban ('foreigners') painted in Japan in 1543 are representations of worlds of trade, where wealth, speculation, exploitation, poverty, curiosity,...