Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asias Great Archipelago

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Nusantaria often referred to as 'Maritime Southeast Asia' is the world's largest archipelago and has, for centuries, been a vital cultural and trading hub. Nusantara, a Sanskrit, then Malay, word referring to an island realm, is here adapted to become Nusantaria - denoting a slightly wider world but one with a single linguistic, cultural and trading base. Nusantaria encompasses the lands and shores created by the melting of the ice following the last Ice Age. These have long been primarily the domain of the Austronesian-speaking peoples and their seafaring traditions. The surrounding waters have always been uniquely important as a corridor connecting East Asia to India, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. In this book, Philip Bowring provides a history of the world's largest and most important archipelago and its adjacent coasts. He tells the story of the peoples and lands located at this crucial maritime and cultural crossroads, from its birth following the last Ice Age to today.

Reviews

Bowring, in a remarkable display of taut writing, whisks us through the archipelago's geological eruption and mythic floods to the rise and fall of multiple port states and emerging regional dynasties and into the modern era of disruption, decay and dismemberment in less than 300 pages. At the same time, he does a wonderful demolition job on Beijing's self-serving take on Asian history. * South China Morning Post *
[Bowring] writes this rich and rambling history as in fact a narrative of change and renewal It is not easy to convince policymakers that history might be the place to look for solutions, yet we have nowhere else to turn to imagine what might yet be possible. * Literary Review *
Beautifully presented with numerous informative maps, excellent illustrations and a very useful glossary, it is both a fascinating read and a very valuable history of one of the world's most important regions. * Baird Maritime *
Rich in detail, and laced with vivid anecdotes ... Bowring notes that Nusantaria is just as vulnerable to climate change as it was after the Ice Age ... will the book's excellent maps of Nusantaria have to be drawn again * The Correspondent *
This hardcover book is handsomely produced with a beautiful dust jacket showing fine Nusantarian galleys in the Moluccas, recorded during the Louis de Freycinet expedition of 181720. It's a volume that offers readers a deeper understanding of the vibrant maritime peoples and events that unfolded literally on Australia's tropical northern doorstep, to better appreciate the complex development of the human, political and economic region that we inhabit. * Jeffrey Mellefont, New Mandela *
This is an important and timely book. Whatever its shortcomings as formal historyand Philip Bowring states clearly that he is no specialist and no academicfor the suitably forewarned general reader at whom it is aimed, who is looking to better understand a complex and pivotal region of the modern world, Empire of the Winds is a must-read. * Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong *
Bowring has taken on the mission of restoring to its rightful place in world history a region that shaped global trade, and with its unrivalled shipbuilding techniques and navigation skills drew disparate cultures and their ideas and know-how together across vast oceans, and whose contribution to humankinds dominion over this planets resources has been largely forgotten. * Post Magazine *

Author Bio

Philip Bowring is a journalist and author based in Asia since 1973. He was formerly Editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review and correspondent for the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal, columnist for the International Herald Tribune, and contributor to the Guardian and South China Morning Post. He graduated in History from Cambridge University and is a student of the history and economy of maritime Asia.