In Asian Waters: Oceanic Worlds from Yemen to Yokohama

In Asian Waters: Oceanic Worlds from Yemen to Yokohama is a fantastic, but not overwhelming, introductory text highlighting the interrelationships that are made possible by way of the oceans. From maritime trades, illegal smuggling, slavery, colonization, and neocolonial militant powers, Eric Tagliacozzo is ambitious and adept enough to weave complex spatial and temporal narratives together in simple prose that introduces these kinds of archives, field notes, and scholarly research to almost anyone interested in a compelling sociohistorical story. Yet he also does not underestimate his audience. The stories flow from one connection to the next—“power; trade; the oscillation of empires; diaspora; and religion-in-transit” (16)—in dizzying speed, perhaps a litmus test for the reader to gauge how far their interests (and stamina) will carry them to follow the book's main arguments and Tagliacozzo's own zeal to squeeze a significant amount of history in five hundred pages. However, where the book thrives is where it also struggles the most: In Asian Waters is a brilliant text for the budding historian or geography major who is still deciding which part of history (or the world, for that matter) they want to focus on; if a more knowledgeable graduate student or any trained academic does begin to decipher the book's main goals and what it ultimately achieves, then there are some questionable instances of compartmentalization. If this book endeavors to cover a vast amount of sociohistorical time and histories from different cultures, religions, nation-states, and migrant movements, then is there not a more significant chance that something will be amiss?In Asian Waters, according to Tagliacozzo, “attempts to tie together the maritime history of Asia into a single, interconnected web” (15) or a “grand curve” (16). It is divided into six parts, and then each of those parts are subdivided into smaller, digestible chapters. These are the following: first, “Maritime Connections”; second, “Bodies of Water”; third, “Religions on the Tides”; fourth, “Cities and the Sea”; fifth, “The Bounty of the Oceans”; and sixth, “Technologies of the Sea.” These six parts flow into one another—perhaps a testament to the writing and scholarly voracity of the author. The book successfully bridges the grandiose connections it ventures by always linking back the narratives to the two bodies of water it bases its arguments on: the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea (or West Philippine Sea). It strives to answer the main research question, “How can maritime pathways that have existed for centuries be partially responsible for many of the day-to-day realities of our lived existence?” (4), which is a reverberating query that Tagliacozzo recognizes and sustains as he delves into the “specter of China as a reemerging superpower on these routes” (384) in the last few chapters. This analysis of how China has begun to infiltrate ocean waters to strengthen its military and commerce (among others) is a fitting parallel to where the book started, which is with a discussion of how China and Africa share intimate connections and relationships that have been ongoing “likely well over a thousand years ago” (53) through sailing or island hopping. This is an example of how the book often zooms in and out of specific micro- and macrohistories to ensure that it is responding to the questions it posed in the introduction. For the most part, it is successful in relaying how important these micro and macro parts of our shared histories are, which is to determine why the world functions the way it does today and how it/we will function together or apart in the future.Unfortunately, as the book continues to zoom in and out of grander narratives, there are some aspects that Tagliacozzo does not provide enough emphasis on or completely ignores—understandable, in a book of this size and ambition. For example, one will quickly notice that despite the author's considerable number of research languages (Dutch, English, Malay, and some Chinese language), most of the sources are still Western-centered and, thus, Asian history is again shared and analyzed through the lenses of Global North researchers and resources. Furthermore, the book also has extensive footnotes, endnotes, an appendix, and a bibliography, but these parts could be books on their own. If the author truly wants to relay a complex and nonhierarchical picture of Asian waters, then perhaps the book should be at least three volumes—and not just one where a source of information is privileged over another to continue the flow of the story. Tagliacozzo's own ethnographic accounts of interviews conducted throughout his research career in Southeast Asia and the Asian continent in general could be its own volume—there is something fascinating about hearing counternarratives from the nonacademic individuals who are in the throes of both the temporal and spatial moments that were discussed in each chapter.In the end, In Asian Waters ambitiously tries to weave a narrative out of the bodies of water that connect specific nation-states and their shared histories in one generously sized book. It is a good introduction to a history that is not immediately available to many folks who may be interested in this part of the world but have no material resources to actually study or research about it. Yet, for those who are privy to the professional fields that this book wishes to address or even academics who are from these Asian waters, the gaps in the book can be as overwhelming as the arguments it forms.

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