Philip Bowring

Winner of the Penang Book Prize 2019

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.

Table of contents
List of Maps and Illustrations
Glossary
Preface
Introduction
1. Child of a Drowned Parent
2. Nusantaria's Defining Features and Early People
3. To Babylon and Back
4. Ghosts of Early Empires
5. Culture from India, Goods from China
6. Srivijaya: Vanished Great Mandala
7. Java Takes Centre Stage
8. Tamil Tigers of Trade
9. Champa: Master of the East Sea
10. Malagasy Genes and African Echoes
11. China Raises its Head
12. The Majapahit Good Life
13. Tremble and Obey: the Zheng He Voyages
14. Nails, Dowels and Improbable Ships
15. Malay Melaka's Lasting Legacy
16. The Northern Outliers
17. Islam's Great Leap East
18. Nusantaria: Holed near the Waterline
19. Barangays and Baybayin
20. Makassar, Bugis and Freedom of the Seas
21. Where Kings Reign but Priests Rule
22. The Sulu Factor: Trading, Raiding, Slaving
23. Nusantaria's Existential Crisis
24. Labour, Capital, Kongsi: The Power of the Chinese
25. High Noon of Occupation
26. Empty Lands No Longer
27. Freedom, Fears and the Future
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Reviews
“This fast-paced book by a respected journalist describes how the islands and coastal territories of Southeast Asia have consistently been a crucial element in world history … The book is a good corrective to global histories that tend to study the world from a European- or Sino-centered perspective … [It] brings forward a lively story about how trade, religion, and culture crossed many boundaries, including oceans, from earliest recorded history, centrally involving the islands and coastal territories of Southeast Asia. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.” – CHOICE

“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

“A fascinating book ... packed with names, dates and events as Asia's Great Archipelago is packed with islands-well over 30,000 on anyone's count ... An important and timely book ... [For the general reader] 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

“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 1817–20. 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

“In contrast and happy opposition to the national frameworks that nowadays limit most historical understandings of the diverse islands and coastlines that make up Southeast Asia-or Nusantaria, as he calls it, Bowring weaves a bright tapestry stretching across the centuries and the oceans to capture our eyes and minds, and remind us of the significance and richness of this often misunderstood corner of the world.” – Ooi Kee Beng, Penang Institute (Malaysia)

“Philip Bowring has produced an absorbing and timely history of maritime Southeast Asia. Ranging from prehistoric times to the present, he deftly harnesses an impressive range of sources into a compelling and fast-paced narrative. Bowring has important things to say about how disparate elements – of geography, culture, economic relations and political dynamics – have shaped a complex region that has long been central to global history.” – Gareth Richards, Judge, Penang Book Prize 2019, founder of Gerakbudaya Bookshop Penang and Hikayat… (altro)