While increasingly included in general surveys of world and regional histories, the complex, multicentury histories of the Indian Ocean rarely attract a comprehensive analysis focused on trade. Cunliffe (formerly, archaeology, Univ. of Oxford, UK) offers just such a corrective study. This volume covers the history of trade in the Indian Ocean from antiquity to the early modern era, combining archaeological evidence and tales of the ocean’s great travelers to account for the origins of globalization. Focusing especially economic systems, this phenomenal study provides the historical perspectives needed to understand modern economies. Impressively, Cunliffe frames the origins of global maritime trade within the stories of the Indian Ocean's great voyagers, including Muslim travelers Ibn Battuta and Zheng He. More valuable still, he emphasizes the interconnections between these Indian Ocean traders and maritime trade routes in the Arabian/Persian Gulf and the Red and South China Sea regions. While the story invariably continues after 1600 CE, when European companies began to dominate global trade, this study's parameters are justified by invaluable reflections on how commodities traded during the period covered amply reflect an era predating capitalist imperialism. As such, Cunliffe considers the so-called birth of the modern world as the progeny of an already deeply connected Indian Ocean.