The Making of the Indo-Islamic World c.700–1800 CE

André Wink
Paperback, 308 pages
9781108405652

In a new accessible narrative, Andre Wink presents his major reinterpretation of the long-term history of India and the Indian Ocean region from the perspective of world history and geography. Situating the history of the Indianized territories of South Asia and Southeast Asia within the wider history of the Islamic world, he argues that the long-term development and transformation of Indo-Islamic history is best understood as the outcome of a major shift in the relationship between the sedentary peasant societies of the river plains, the nomads of the great Saharasian arid zone and the seafaring populations of the Indian Ocean. This revisionist work redraws the Asian past as the outcome of the fusion of these different types of settled and mobile societies, placing geography and environment at the centre of human history.

Contents
1. Pre-historic and ancient antecedents
2. The expansion of agriculture and settled society
3. Geography and the world-historical context
4. Medieval India and the rise of Islam
5. From the Mongols to the Great Mughals
6. The empire of the Great Mughals and its Indian foundations
7. The Indian Ocean in the age of the Estado da India and the East India Companies