BOOK REVIEW: JACQUES COULARDEAU AND IVAN EVE, “THE INDIAN OCEAN FROM ADMIRAL ZHENG HE TO HUB AND SPOKE CONTAINER MARITIME COMMERCE”, EDITIONS LA DONDAINE, JANUARY 21, 2016, KINDLE EDITION, 274 PAGES.

Abstract

This book tackles the New Silk Road from a number of different perspectives, historical, social, economic, and from the standpoint of geopolitics. The reader is given a background regarding the Old Silk Road – its human cost and the socio-economic implications in the present, typified by what is called Post-Traumatic Slavery Disorder and Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome.

We learn about the 13 centuries of slave trading done by the Muslim powers, and of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, which lasted 300 years, but produced approximately the same number of casualties. We learn about slavery in India and about the slave-trade in the Indian Ocean. That it had existed since probably the emergence of agriculture, something like 12,000 years ago. Religious motivations for slavery are also highlighted, alongside the changes in thought and values, from Judaism to Islam, and of course, Christianity.