Beginning in the mid-15th century, the areas neighboring the western Indian Ocean – "the green sea," as it was known to Arabic speakers – witnessed significant transformations. An era of commercial and cultural exchange blossomed between the Red Sea and Mecca, the Persian Gulf, East Africa, Kerala, and western India.

In the book Across the Green Sea, Sanjay Subrahmanyam recounts the history of this ocean from a variety of shifting perspectives. He sets the stage with the retreat of China's Ming dynasty and explores how the western Indian Ocean was transformed by the growth and increasing significance of the Ottoman Empire, as well as the ongoing spread of Islam in East Africa. He examines how several cities, including Mecca and the key Indian port Surat, developed and changed during these centuries, as various forces interacted, until famines and other upheavals disrupted the region in the 17th century.

Rather than proposing an artificial model of a dominant center and subordinate peripheries, Across the Green Sea reveals the complexity of a truly dynamic and multicentric system through the use of connected histories, a method he has pioneered.

Pages: 244, Dimensions: 15.6x15.6cm