Table of Contents

1. Introduction.- I. Routes and Connections.- 2. China’s Increasing Integration into the Indian Ocean World until Song 宋 Times: Sea Routes, Connections, Trades.- 3. The Peak of China’s Long-Distance Maritime Connections with Western Asia during the Mongol Period: Comparison with the Pre-Mongol and Post-Mongol Periods.- 4. “He Did Not Kiss the Earth between His Hands”: Arabic Sources on the Arrivals of the Zheng He Fleet in Aden and Mecca (1419–1432).- II. Commercial Crossroads and New Perspectives on Archaeological Evidence.- 5. Protohistoric and Early Historic Exchange in the Eastern Indian Ocean: A Re-evaluation of Current Paradigms.- 6. Shipwrecks in Southeast Asia: China’s Maritime Trade and the Emerging Role of Arab Merchants in Late First Millennium Indian Ocean Exchange.- 7. Cargoes Human and Otherwise: Chinese Commerce in East African Goods during the Middle Period.- 8. Indic Mercantile Networks and the Indian Ocean World: A Millennial Overview (c. 500–1500 CE).- III. Official and Contraband Trade in the Nineteenth Century.- 9. Opium in the Indian Ocean Trade in the Early Modern Period: A Commodity of Both Official and Contraband Exchange.- 10. Transfer of Small Arms from Great Britain to Iran (Persia) in the Nineteenth Century.- 11. German Merchants in the Indian Ocean World: From Early Modern Paralysis to Modern Animation.- IV. Diasporas, Trade, and Human Mobility.- 12. Han Chinese Representations of South Sea Merchants in Song China.- 13. Port Cities in the Gulf and the Red Sea during the Long Eighteenth Century (c. 1720–c. 1840): General Characteristics and Some Comparisons with Southeast Asia.