This extensively annotated volume—part of the A History of the World series of general editors Akira Iriye and Jurgen Osterhammel—attempts to understand global developments in the formative period of Europe’s ascendancy in the world. Translated from the German edition published by C.H. Beck Verlag in 2014 which was titled Weltreiche und Weltmeere: 1350-1750, each section of the volume takes the reader to a world region through multiple rotating lenses: of geography, ecology and the environment with cores, borderlands, frontiers and natural hazards; of economy—agriculture, trade and fiscalism—; of politics, challenges to hegemony and relations with conquered peoples; social organisation with the roles of elites and masses; and of the level of development of the arts. Geographical spaces are re-conceptualized: empires, empire-building, contact zones/contact groups and common cultural spaces over large spatial tranches are focal. Continental Eurasia (Russia, China, and Central Asia) occupies a large space in this imaginary. China and Russia are not treated as separate categories as has been the norm; this is refreshingly new. The interplay of multiple factors and agencies is seen through the axes of communication, interaction, connection, and convergence. The connections transcend imperial, national or even trans-regional frames and become truly transnational. Consequently, the volume aims at presenting a global history or even a history of the world to the reader.

The organization of the volume is distinctive. There is a general introduction by the editor setting out the theme and scope of the volume, its objectives, and specific thrust. Thereafter, each world region is introduced by a different author: Continental Eurasia (Peter C. Perdue), Ottoman Empire and the Islamic World (Suraiya Faroqhi), South Asia and the Indian Ocean (Stephan Conermann), Southeast Asia and Oceania (Reinhard Wendt and Jurgen G. Nagel) and Europe and the Atlantic World (Wolfgang Reinhard). The last two are treated together, Reinhard writes, because of the imbalanced state of historical research in the Atlantic World (739), but for this reviewer, at least this strategy does tend to imply that this world was a purely European invention.

I have some issues with the organization of the volume. For one, it is very comprehensiveness makes it somewhat unwieldy for the reader to access, particularly regarding the notes which are placed right at the end of this very large and heavy volume. Two, it would also have been helpful if a separate table of contents had been made for the maps, illustrations, and tables in the volume. This reviewer had considerable trouble locating them and may indeed have missed some. Three, since empires and empire-building, are focal, why did Byzantium not merit a section of its own since that empire continued, nominally at least, until 1453? Its demise suggests the fragility of Eastern Christendom, which was a post-imperial construct. It might have been useful to study a “western” imperial region that was both a religious construct and a political space, which is what Byzantium eventually transformed into. Four, it might have been useful for the reader if a separate section had been devoted to Europe, as was done for the other world regions. And, it would also have been handy if the distinctiveness of West European developments was enumerated and compared to other world regions to explain the rise of the West and the decline of the rest from the volume’s perspective.

These generalities aside, this reviewer also has problems with the way information is sometimes presented in the book. I will confine my comments to the section on South Asia and the Indian Ocean and question some of the nomenclatures used. The Persian terms “mansabdaran” (Conermann, 440, 441, 443, 449 as used in plural for the Mughal term mansabdar) and similarly jagirdaran” for jagirdar (Conermann, 443), although undoubtedly correct, are not usually used in South Asian history-writing. Likewise, the term zamindaran” for zamindar which also occurs frequently (Conermann, 434, 442, 444, 445-7, 449-51). But these are minor quibbles.

More surprisingly, Conermann references the “merchants of Calcutta” in the matter of receiving Rasulid patronage in 1393 (505). Since Calcutta did not exist at the time, this reviewer was baffled and searched for an alternate explanation which was readily available in the document “Lettre des marchands de Calicut au sultan rasūlide al-Ašraf Ismāʿīl (795)” referenced by himself in EN 108 (994). The article in which this letter appears is “Les sultans Rasūlides du Yémen: Protcteurs des communautun musulmanes de l’Inde VIIe-VIIIe/XIIIe-XIVe siècles” by Eric Vallet. It as published in Annales Islamologiques 41 in 2007 and is cited by Conermann in the bibliography (1090).

Here is what the letter says: “… la communauté (ǧamāʿa) de la cité de Calicut, en particulier les nobles marchands et les éminentes personnalités qui la composent, a exprimé le souhait que la chaire (minbar) [de Calicut] soit honorée par la mention des titres (alqā b) de notre maître le très grand sultan, le très haut calife, libérateur (muḥarrir) des royaumes des Arabes et des Persans, maître des sultans du nord et du sud (al-šā m wa-l-yaman), le sultan, l’illustre seigneur al-Malik al-Ašraf – que Dieu rende son règne éternel” (Vallet, 2007: 170). Reading the letter, this reviewer naturally thought “Calcutta” in the volume under review was a typographic error for Calicut—an understandable error since the two names are somewhat similar—although its presence in the volume would also suggest hasty proof-correction. However, “Calcutta” is explained as “Kolkata” (Conermann 504, line 5) which shows that such was not the case. The identification with of Calicut with Calcutta is clear—a serious gaffe and the identification with Calcutta is repeated in lines 16-17, second paragraph (504). Elizabeth Lambourn’s excellent works on Rasulid engagements in the Indian Ocean realm (“India from Aden: Khutba and Muslim Urban Networks in Late Thirteenth-Century India”, in Kenneth R. Hall, ed. Secondary Cities and Urban Networking in the Indian Ocean Realm, c. 1400-1800, 2008; “Khutba and Muslim Networks in the Indian Ocean (Part II)—Timurid and Ottoman Engagements”, in Kenneth R. Hall, ed., The Growth of Non-Western Cities: Primary and Secondary Urban Networking, c. 900-1900, 2011) could have been referenced along with Vallet’s work; this would have made it clear that Rasulid patronage never reached as far east as Bengal, which is where Calcutta—an eighteenth century port-city—is situated.

These quibbles aside, the volume is a welcome addition to the growing body of literature on world history and the editor is to be congratulated for undertaking such an enormous task. The bibliography for each section is impressive, if sometimes a bit dated and often heavily weighted in favour of western scholars—particularly for South Asia—and the translation is very readable. The result is a meticulously presented, somewhat alternate history of world empires and their many encounters from 1350 to 1750.