New in paperback. Hardcover was published in 2022. In the centuries leading up to our own, the volume of traffic across Asian sea routes - an area stretching from East Africa and the Middle East to Japan - grew dramatically, eventually making them the busiest in the world. Eric Tagliacozzo chronicles how the seas and oceans of Asia have shaped the history of the largest continent for the past half millennium, leaving an indelible mark on the modern world in the process.