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Do not let the title of this book fool you, or, perhaps, let the title of this book fool you. It is indeed about the Portuguese conquerors of the 15th-16th century who rounded the Cape of Good Hope and established the first Western European presence in the Indian Ocean. Crowley’s conquerors were not just after the profit of the spice trade, of which there was much to be had, but were also seeking to carry through the holy crusade of winning back Jerusalem from the Muslims, a feat which, inexperienced and too far from home, they were ill-equipped for. Perhaps to Crowley’s eyes as well as to those of the Portuguese, India as an ends to itself was not quite the same as holy war. But, then again, Crowley focuses on only a few of Portugal’s leaders, and quite often notes how many of their men stood in opposition to the goal to eradicate Islam from Christian holy sites and trade networks. It’s not an academic study so much as an exciting historical investigation, a good door into the world of the Portuguese Indian Ocean that can lead to even more nuanced studies of the European invasion of the Indian Ocean.

It’s too bad Zheng He’s voyages didn’t leave behind more complete records, because it most likely would have been enlightening to read Levathes’s full account of them. Behind what deceptively appears to be a narrative of the Treasure Fleet milked for all its worth is a tale of Chinese diplomacy, Sinocentrism, East Asian religion, and court politics that, despite the paucity of the sources concerning the actual fleet, leave us with a neat narrative of the Yongle Emperor’s reign. Levathes does a fine job of extracting what little she can from scant Chinese sources on Zheng He and supplementing them with rich documents on the Ming Empire to create a convincing portrait of an Emperor who wanted to bring the glory of the Chinese Empire to the Indian Ocean while at the same strengthening China’s diplomatic and military power vis a vis his new trading partners. As written, it’s a convincing interpretation as to the purpose of the Treasure Fleet. Unfortunately, Levathes does not use the same subtle skill to explore China’s subsequent abrupt isolationism. A book of deceptive depth that is also easy to read, it’s a nice entry into the myriad of work on the Ming Empire that are contemporary to it.

It may just be impossible to overstate the importance of this book and its detailed but succinct uncovering of the way Indians and Europeans interacted with the land of New England and with each other, critically historizing all three characters. For use in a undergraduate course, even to frame a lecture, this book can be used to challenge students’ preconceived notions of static or ahistorical systems as dynamic, with all human characters endowed with agency. I’ve read this short volume countless times but I always find something new. I can’t wait to share it with my students.

This unique book on an overlooked and important aspect of the Age of Exploration can’t seem to pick what it wants to be. Is it an economic history? A political history? Or (least of all) a cultural history? Perhaps Giraldez presupposes a reader with more foreknowledge of the topic than I have, which is fair, but I often found myself lost in the lists of figures and officials. The inclusions of laws was extremely helpful and interesting but their contents were poorly explained. I wanted to read more about the Magellan exchange, revealing my own biases. I wanted to read more about interactions with the Chinese and Filipinos. I wanted more than figures and names, which disrupt the narrative and delay analysis. I think this book is part of a crucial project but for the uninformed reader and perhaps the informed reader as well, it falls short in terms of analytical content.

In order to better understand the history of slavery that I will be teaching from 1450, I decided to read this book on Roman slavery both to inform myself historically and to learn more about a system that is often compared to American chattel slavery as being more humane. This book is the perfect read for an undergraduate or armchair historian looking to learn about the basic ins and outs of Roman slavery. It is written simply though with important detail, and Joshel is always forthcoming about the shortcomings of her sources and when she is presenting speculation. This honesty is a valuable tool to both the beginning and advanced scholar, as it demonstrates the importance of reading against the grain. My one qualm is that Joshel did not place Roman slavery in the context of a more inter-regional or global slave system. It would have been nice to learn more about where these slaves came from. Otherwise a neat little read that demonstrates strong scholarship and a brief but rich understanding of the subject matter.

Because I plan to use this book to help construct a lecture on the role of slavery in global history, I was a bit disappointed that more of the essays did not explicitly place Indian Ocean slavery in a global context. What the essays did do is prove the vibrancy and variance of slavery in the world of the Indian Ocean, moving away from a focus on transatlantic slavery as the sole model of slavery. For those looking to use this book in a global context, as I am, Matthew S. Hopper’s “Slaves of One Master: Globalization and the African Diaspora in Arabia in the Age of Empire” provides a wonderful exploration of how transatlantic trade effected slavery and trade in the Indian Ocean. Working with transatlantic texts and the essays in this volume, it is also possible to draw comparisons with transatlantic slavery even though these comparisons are not openly discussed in the text. Though it doesn’t meet my needs exactly, I think it’s still a valuable work on a slave trade that doesn’t receive the attention it necessarily warrants, that also unveils a complex world of freedom and bondage.

The best way to approach this book is as a starting point. Allen’s goal is not only to prove that European slaving took place in the Indian Ocean between 1500 – 1850, but that it was intimately related to the more popularly studied transatlantic slave trade. He proposes a world system of slavery. The book is strongest when Allen is exposing the European role in the Indian Ocean’s slave trade, and he resists the trap of simply recounting what he found in his sources, though he does generate an amazing amount of statistical analysis. He proves his argument most convincingly when he traces the evolution of abolitionist thought in the Indian Ocean, linking it to similar developments in Europe. Allen is the first to admit that there is much work to be done on this subject, but this book does a great job of opening the door to future scholarship on the link between transatlantic and Indian Ocean slavery.

A well-researched if depressingly Eurocentric account of Latin American history. A more thorough and balanced work would have spent more time exploring the interactions between the indigenous, European, and African peoples that Eakin claimed to be the foundational forces behind the shaping of Latin America. Instead we get chapters focusing solely on Europe and European conquerors with little detail on other perspectives and experiences of the development of Latin America. What’s present is detailed and insightful, but a huge part of the shaping of Latin American is missing due to Eakin’s focus on the European side of the story.

When historians write about slave labor, they most often make the claim that slave labor varied with time and place. In the case of this book, slave labor is meant to include both the laboring slaves did for their masters as well as the laboring they did for themselves in order to take part in the (independent) slave economy. Reading this book, the authors of each included essay paint a picture of slave labor that looks very much the same: slaves worked for their masters and then slaves worked for themselves in ways that operated so similarly that each essay blended almost identically into the others. Perhaps these similarities speak to the a paucity of sources available about slave labor, particularly the independent slave economy – surely a great deal of reading against the grain is involved. Or perhaps the plantation systems of the Americas were structured so similarly that they bred similar labor regimens. Perhaps slaveowners developed networks of communication and experience that led them to oversee the development of slave labor in similar ways. Perhaps the movement of slaves internally promoted a share expectation of what made up plantation and independent labor. Or perhaps the editors were not careful enough to select essays that would actually show the variety of claimed slave experiences with labor.

All that aside, this book is very useful in instructing the uninitiated reader in the ins and outs of slave labor. But the more informed reader might look elsewhere for more differentiated information on the subject.