ABSTRACT
Pedro Machado's background makes him an excellent person for the kind of study he undertakes in his book. He's a research associate of the Indian Ocean World Centre. He knows many languages, and has worked on various World History projects on slavery and on leprosy. His focus is on ocean trade and in particular the products of cloth, ivory and slaves. One very important reason to engage in the study of World History is to unlearn the Eurocentric distortions we have been taught in school and that are reinforced in many aspects of mainstream American culture. A key way in which Machado's book departs from the Eurocentric norm is that he is most interested in describing producers, traders, and consumers who are not European. So he does not chronicle the trade of items going to or from Europe.
