ABSTRACT
Europeans in Asia In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Europeans learned what Asians already knew: how to use the wind systems of the Indian Ocean. They also learned the wind systems of the Atlantic and Pacific, knowledge which would give them an advantage on a global scale. However, they entered Asian waters before European naval technology greatly exceeded that of Asia and before the Industrial Revolution.1 By many measures, economic productivity in China and possibly also in India was still ahead of that in Europe.2 Asia had a relatively large population and possessed urban cultures that were highly complex. The role that Europeans would play in Asia was not at all obvious.
