Kenneth R. Hall is professor of history at Ball State University.

A very useful and provocative collection of twelve essays on a variety of themes and societies, stretching from China to Sudan. Will be of interest to historians of Asian cities, the Indian Ocean realm's economic and cultural networks, and the Early Modern world generally.

• IntroductionChapter 1. Autonomy and Subordination: The Cultural Dynamics of Small CitiesChapter 2. Suakin: A Port City of the Early Modern SudanChapter 3. India from Aden: Khutba and Muslim Urban Networks in Late Thirteenth-Century IndiaChapter 4. At the Intersection of Empire and World Trade: The Chinese Port City of Quanzhou (Zaitun), Eleventh-Fifteenth CenturiesChapter 5. Clearing the Fields and Strengthening the Walls: Defending Small Cities in Late Ming ChinaChapter 6. Secondary Capitals of Dai Viet: Shifting Elite Power BasesChapter 7. Coastal Cities in an Age of Transition: Upstream-Downstream Networking and Societal Development in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Maritime Southeast AsiaChapter 8. Missionary Buddhism in a Post-Ancient World: Monks, Merchants, and Colonial Expansion in Seventeenth-Century Cochinchina (Vietnam)Chapter 9. Religious Networking and Upstream Buddhist Wall Paintings in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century BurmaChapter 10. The Ottoman Balkan City: The Periphery as Center in Punitive SpectacleChapter 11. A Tale of Three Cities: Burhanpur from 1400 to 1800Chapter 12. Urban Primacy and Urban Hierarchy: Four Examples from Southern India, c. 1000-1800

Kenneth R. Hall is professor of history at Ball State University.

A very useful and provocative collection of twelve essays on a variety of themes and societies, stretching from China to Sudan. Will be of interest to historians of Asian cities, the Indian Ocean realm's economic and cultural networks, and the Early Modern world generally.

• IntroductionChapter 1. Autonomy and Subordination: The Cultural Dynamics of Small CitiesChapter 2. Suakin: A Port City of the Early Modern SudanChapter 3. India from Aden: Khutba and Muslim Urban Networks in Late Thirteenth-Century IndiaChapter 4. At the Intersection of Empire and World Trade: The Chinese Port City of Quanzhou (Zaitun), Eleventh-Fifteenth CenturiesChapter 5. Clearing the Fields and Strengthening the Walls: Defending Small Cities in Late Ming ChinaChapter 6. Secondary Capitals of Dai Viet: Shifting Elite Power BasesChapter 7. Coastal Cities in an Age of Transition: Upstream-Downstream Networking and Societal Development in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Maritime Southeast AsiaChapter 8. Missionary Buddhism in a Post-Ancient World: Monks, Merchants, and Colonial Expansion in Seventeenth-Century Cochinchina (Vietnam)Chapter 9. Religious Networking and Upstream Buddhist Wall Paintings in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century BurmaChapter 10. The Ottoman Balkan City: The Periphery as Center in Punitive SpectacleChapter 11. A Tale of Three Cities: Burhanpur from 1400 to 1800Chapter 12. Urban Primacy and Urban Hierarchy: Four Examples from Southern India, c. 1000-1800