World of the Indian Ocean, 1500-1800

M.N. Pearson is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

'One of the most eminent scholars in the field of Indian Ocean studies, Pearson’s wide-ranging oeuvre displays a certain unity in diversity...It is to be hoped that the new maritime history of the Indian Ocean will explore some of the directions plotted out here and elsewhere by Pearson.' Itinerario '... this book will surely provide inspiration and insights to many an Indian scholar of Indo-Portuguese or Maritime history.' Indica

• Contents: Introduction; Economic and Trade History: Spain and Spanish trade in southeast Asia; Brokers in western Indian port cities: their role in servicing foreign merchants; Goa-based seaborne trade, 17th-18th centuries; Asia and world precious metal flows in the early modern period; Indians in East Africa: the early modern period. Social and Religious Themes: Littoral society: the case for the coast; Goa during the first century of Portuguese rule; Conversions in south-east Asia: evidence from the Portuguese records; The search for the similar: early contacts between Portuguese and Indians; Gateways to Africa: the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea; The East African coast in 1498: a synchronic study. Medical Exchanges: Hindu medical practice in sixteenth-century western India: evidence from the Portuguese records; The Portuguese state and medicine in sixteenth-century Goa; The thin end of the wedge: medical relativities as a paradigm of early modern Indian-European relations; First contacts between Indian and European medical systems: Goa in the sixteenth century. Index.