Indian Ocean

When did the first humans arrive in India and how did they get here? What are Roman artefacts from hundreds of years ago doing in a town near Puducherry? How did merchants from Arabia end up near Kochi? From the east coast of Africa to Australia, one big blue body of water has connected diverse...

Around eight o'clock a.m. on December 26, a massive earthquake registering 9.1-9.3 on the Richter Scale struck off of Sumatra, Indonesia, making it the third strongest earthquake ever recorded by seismographs. On top of that, the earthquake shook for nearly 10 minutes and generated incredibly strong tsunami waves. Thanks to the element of surprise, people in the region had virtually no warning of what was coming. The tsunami waves pulverized entire towns and swept away hundreds of thousands of people across Southeast Asia.

Throughout history, the Indian Ocean has been an essential space for trade, commerce, and culture. Every European power has sought to dominate it. Now, after a lull in the postwar period, control of major shipping routes has once again become a critical aspect of every rising state's ambition to be a global power. Darshana M. Baruah shows how governments from Washington, DC, to Nairobi and Canberra are expanding their interests in the region.

The Silk Road may be one origin of globalization, but the Indian Ocean is another. Barry Cunliffe examines the beginning of maritime trade using the evidence of archaeology and the tales of great travelers such as Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta, and the Chinese Admiral, Zheng He. This story complements that of the land routes, showing how humans have been driven across thousands of years to create and maintain networks whatever the difficulties.

In April 2013 a global breaking news story surfaced on social media and in the world press and rapidly gathered momentum. A South African man had fallen overboard in the night during a storm in remote Indonesian waters, without anyone else on board realising. Eight hours later a frantic search was underway.

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER A TIMES BEST MEMOIR OF 2023 ‘Grippingly vivid and pacey’ THE TIMES ‘A seven-year old girl on a seventy-foot yacht, for ten years, over fifty thousand miles of sailing’ SIMON WINCHESTER 'An astonishing almost day-by-day account of [a] hazardous journey and its...

This is a major history of the Indian Ocean structured through twenty human enterprises/interactions that have taken place in this diverse environment – from the discovery of fossils hinting to older ages to diving for pearls, the trade of spices, the effects of pollution, the passage of enslaved people, the charting of maps and much more. Collectively they sketch out a comprehensive overview of this extraordinary human crossroads.

In this, the first of Patrick O’Brian’s much lauded Aubrey–Maturin novels, discover a vibrant world conjured by a master storyteller, rich with detail and character. 1800. Napoleon Bonaparte is the biggest threat to peace yet seen. Newly promoted to command of his first ship, Captain Jack...

About The Kiwi and The Boy - The boy receives a parcel at his school in South Africa. The contents send him on a journey around the world from South Africa to New Zealand with a stop in Australia along the way. Where should he travel next? About The Rainbow Travelers Series - The rainbow travelers have accidentally discovered the secret to crossing the ocean in an instant. In the first book in the series, they arrive in New Zealand and need your help to decide what to do and where to go next.

In terms of geopolitics, perhaps the most seminal event of the Middle Ages was the successful Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453. The city had been an imperial capital as far back as the fourth century when Constantine the Great shifted the power center of the Roman Empire there effectively establishing two almost equally powerful halves of antiquity’s greatest empire. Constantinople would continue to serve as the capital of the Byzantine Empire even after the Western half of the Roman Empire collapsed in the late fifth century.

The transatlantic slave trade was founded by the Portuguese in the 15th century for the specific purpose of supplying the New World colonies with African slave labor. It was soon joined by all the major trading powers of Europe, and it reached its peak in the 18th century with the founding and development of plantation economies that ran from the South American mainland through the Caribbean and into the southern states of the United States. The East African Slave Trade, on the other hand, was more complex, far older, and significantly more widespread.

How far will a man go in the name of revenge, honour, love or simple survival? Far from familiar seas, Captain Jack Aubrey and his crew must test themselves to the very limits of human endurance. Following a daring rescue, Jack Aubrey accepts a new command and a new commission to a far-flung...

There is a fine line between privateer and pirate, between friend and foe. With a beleaguered Britain already facing war on two fronts – against Napoleon’s armies in Europe but also against the young and vigorous United States – the objective of ship’s surgeon and spy Stephen Maturin is...