R. J. BARENDSE, The Arabian Seas: The Indian Ocean World of the Seventeenth Century, Asia and the Pacific (London: M. E. Sharpe, 2002). Pp. 604. $34.95

Extract

This is a frustrating book. It is frustrating because the author, R. J. Barendse, has clearly undertaken an enormous amount of archival research, including extensive work in the Dutch archives, which, for linguistic reasons, have not been sufficiently exploited. His sources provide a wealth of colorful vignettes from the world of trade in the 17th century. The trip from Mosul to Basra, for example, “led through barren deserts, where the single sound was the distant wail of hyenas. No other human beings were seen for days; sometimes on the far horizon appeared campfires” (p. 44). Or the trials and tribulations of a Turkish merchant named Nasr Ali Cagasi who went to Samarkand to buy rhubarb for a Dutch merchant. When he went bankrupt, the Dutch East India Company threw him in jail to force him to pay his debts. Finally, they released him since no one came forward to provide bail; he had to labor as a domestic servant instead (p. 157). Yet the wealth of detail in the book is not presented within a coherent framework. Indeed, organization of the material is so lacking that it is exhausting to read.