Review | Empire of the Winds: account of Southeast Asia’s ‘great archipelago’ rejects China’s take on its history
- Author Philip Bowring explores the significance of a region he calls Nusantaria stretching from Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines to Indonesia and Timor
- Trade winds, resources and wealth made the more than 20,000 islands of the archipelago into a hub of global trade, he writes
Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia’s Great Archipelago by Philip Bowring, published by I.B. Tauris
“Trade and tolerance are happy bedfellows. So too are freedom of navigation and the absence of monopoly,” Philip Bowring writes. It becomes a recurring theme in his riveting history of … of what?
Bowring has taken on the mission of restoring to its rightful place in world history a region that shaped global trade, and with its unrivalled shipbuilding techniques and navigation skills drew disparate cultures – and their ideas and know-how – together across vast oceans, and whose contribution to humankind’s dominion over this planet’s resources has been largely forgotten.
This is a region without a name. Bowring makes one up: Nusantaria. The word “nusantara” exists in Malay but has come to mean “archipelago”, and specifically Indonesia. Bowring’s typographical tweak aims to construct a sweeping cultural tradition that stretches from Sumatra and peninsular Malaysia, through the Philippines and Taiwan and across to Timor, the Maluku Islands and still farther east.
The book’s title refers to the region’s strategic and serendipitous location at the confluence of seasonal winds. Being able to sail in predictable directions at certain times of the year was a major encouragement to take to the seas. Other inducements included the uneven distribution of resources and wealth across the more than 20,000 islands that form Asia’s Great Archipelago – making a necessity of short hops to neighbouring islands to exchange basic commodities. Over centuries, maritime skills were honed as traders made ever longer and more ambitious voyages.
