ABSTRACT
This chapter examines oceanic networks spanning five centuries. It recognizes that oceanic worlds are modern cultural constructs, and understands them to be fractured and fragmented worlds that are intrinsically unstable. The maritime world signals by contrast an expansive world forging links across waters, since its ambit – signifying seaborne connections generating maritime empires and cultures – is larger and links to world and global history, bringing marginal histories to the centre of historical research. The maritime world’s reach is larger because it necessarily extends into the interior. The play of maritime networks is evident from the fact that African crops influenced the South Asian mainland earlier than they did in Arabia, suggesting that the Indian Ocean arena, rather than overland zones, was one of the earliest regions facilitating long-distance biological exchanges. Maritime history after the sixteenth century resolves into global history.
