Product Description

'A triumph: a first class comprehensive narrative of the impact upon the people of the Indian Ocean of those who penetrated it. It is hard to believe that this account of a European epic has any rival.' J.M. ROBERTS, author of the Penguin History of the World Until Vasco da Gama discovered the sea-route to the East in 1497-9 almost nothing was known in the West of the exotic cultures and wealth of the Indian Ocean and its peoples. It is this civilisation and its destruction at the hands of the West that Richard Hall recreates in this book. Hall's history of the exploration and exploitation -- by Chinese and Arab travellers, and by the Portuguese, Dutch and British alike -- is one of brutality, betrayal and colonial ambition. It is history told with the true gift of a storyteller and a keen eye for the exotic. It is a compelling and instructive epic.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #584755 in Books
• Published on: 1998-02-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 608 pages

Review
'Empires of the Monsoon is a panoramic study of the history of the Indian Ocean and the destruction of its traditional trade by colonial Europe! Its major achievement is to weave into a coherent whole the histories of a kaleidoscope of civilisations and peoples! Empires of the Monsoon reads like some mediaeval Book of Wonders, rich with exotic improbabilities! . It is all gripping stuff, dizzily ambitious in its scope and full of some of the oddest facts imaginable.' William Dalrymple, Independent 'Empires of the Monsoon is an example of popular history at its best! It is the story of many marvels and many great adventures.' J.D.F. Jones, Financial Times 'A panoramic account of the Indian Ocean and its invaders! combining scholarly zeal with a good journalist's flair for selection and narrative. The book is full of fascinating information.' John Grigg, Sunday Telegraph 'Hall's lively compendium is rich in bloodthirsty sultans, swashbuckling pirates, hypocritical imperialists and serendipitous Sinbads! He is an enthusiastic storyteller who can hold you with his glittering eye.' Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Sunday Times 'A vast and fascinating history! I found it both absorbing and instructive.' Robert Carver, Scotsman

About the Author
Richard Hall is a distinguished journalist and writer. He was born in 1925 and spent his childhood in Australia and England. During the Second World War he served as a rating in a destroyer before going to Oxford to read English. He spent ten years in Africa as a newspaper editor and foreign correspondent and was the last journalist out of Biafra at the end of the Nigerian Civil War. He is the author of many books including a biography of the explorer Henry Stanley and a history of Zambia. After returning from Africa he became editor of the Observer's colour magazine and a columnist for the Financial Times. He owns and manages a company called Africa Analysis and lives in Oxfordshire.

Customer Reviews

A vastly enjoyable narrative history.
This is a well-written, easily-read narrative history covering a huge sweep both historically and geographically. Its three-part division is natural and logical. The first section provides an overview of the various cultures and civilisations bordering the Indian Ocean in the centuries prior to European penetration. The topics covered are as diverse as the settlement of Madagascar from the Indonesian Archipelago, the extension of an Arab trading network down the East-African Coast, the brief but large-scale series of Chinese naval expeditions in the thirteenth and fourteen centuries and the rise of Great Zimbabwe. The heart of the book is the second section, dealing with the epic, bloody and audacious incursion by Western Europeans, led by the Portuguese. This story is dominated by two themes: the crushing superiority afforded by judicious use of what was then white-hot technology - the ship-mounted cannon - and the effective employment of terror as a deliberate weapon by the Portuguese when faced with otherwise impossible odds. Nobody comes with much credit from the grim catalogue of mass-murder, torture and mutilation that provides a sub-text to the creation of the ramshackle Portuguese trading empire which managed, somehow, to persist into living memory. The last part of the book is the weakest, attempting too much as it sketches later developments along the East-African coast up to our own day. The writer would perhaps have been better advised to keep his material for this section for another book - there is certainly enough, and more, for one. The greatest strength of Richard Hall's book is that it rescues from obscurity so many otherwise forgotten, and often bizarre and unlikely episodes. Chief among these are the accounts of the attempted Portuguese alliance with Ethiopia, culminating in the death of Vasco da Gama's son Christofe, and of epic siege of Fort Jesus at Mombassa in 1696. Of no less fascination are the travels of Ibn Battuta, Morocco's rival to Marco Polo, the story of the arrival of Yankee traders at Zanzibar in the 1830's and the rise and fall of the Omani empire along the East-African littoral. In summary this book is a delight from start to finish - one longs for another on the same theme, filling in the areas only hinted at here.

A wonderful read
Empires of the Monsoon is a narrative of the countries bordering the Indian Ocean from just before the advent of Islam up till the 1950s. It tells of the major influences on the area and some of the notable travellers that passed through.

Ibn Battuta, perhaps the most famous Arab voyager is a frequent visitor to the earlier pages of the book. One surprising fact I learnt about him was the ease of which he divorced his wives. Often he would reside in a town for a number of months or years and more often than not he would marry many times during his stay. However as soon as the opportunity arose to set off once again on his travels he would simultaneously divorce all his wives (who by this time where more often than not pregnant) and resume his journey. Another fascinating character is the Chinese Admiral Zheng He. Born a Muslim he was castrated (one imagines to his dismay) at the age of ten in preparation for his entry to the royal court. He went on to serves as China's most prodigal seafarer making journeys ranging from Mombasa to America (admittedly there is still some contention whether he reached America, for if he did he would have beaten Columbus by a good 200 years).

The Portuguese also made impact on the Indian Ocean in a most brutal way. Once Vasco da Gama had made the pioneering journey from Portugal to India around the Cape of Good Hope things took a turn for the worse for the inhabitants under the attempted Portuguese colonisation. Though they made have described the people of Africa as savage their actions soon made any barbarism from the Africans tame in comparison. Many of their victims tortured and killed in the most gruesome manner, often as they killed Muslims they would force them to eat pork. Of all the colonisers of the countries of the Indian Ocean the Portuguese were the most brutal.

The book will be of especial interest for those who come from Mombasa (like myself) as the book goes into some detail on the history of the city. Often bad luck played a part on the fortunes of its inhabitants. In period of 200 years the Portuguese razed the city to the ground three or four times. The Sultan of the Ottamans had on one occasion sent down a small fleet of ships protect the city from an impending Portuguese invasion when the island was beset from the other side by a horde of cannibals called the Zimba who proceeded to devour the inhabitants of Mombasa. These cannibals were later killed by people from Malindi. The Mazrui family (from which I believe the prominent academic Ali Mazrui descends) often played an important role in Mombasa's history. At one point when in control of the city they offered it to the British to occupy instead of allowing the Sultan of Oman control of it.

Overall the first two thirds of this book make fantastic reading. Unfortunately the last third isn't as good and in truth should probably be skipped. The chapters are short and for the most part the book is written in an extremely readable style. There is a plethora of information to be beheld between its pages and I learnt an incredible amount, it covers the slave trade and its abolition in some detail and much of the European colonisation of South Asia and Africa.

Go on, don't hesitate, buy this book now!
An astonishingly comprehensive yet satisfyingly detailed historical account of trade, politics and imperialism. Cracks along at an engrossing pace coupled with not inconsiderable narrative breadth, wit and flair. Informative and hugely entertaining.