This work is split up into four parts. These are 'Overviews', 'The Pacific as Linchpin of World Trade', 'Winners and Losers in the Global Silver Trade', and 'Birth of Globalization Debate: Ecological, Economic, Epidemiological, and Demographic Interactions'

"The contribution of Southeast Asia to the world economy (during the late prehistoric and early historic periods) has not received much attention. It has often been viewed as a region of peripheral entrepôts, especially in the early centuries of the current era. Recent archaeological evidence...