BOOK OF THE MONTH: NOVEMBER 2016

                                                   
Title         : Empires of the Monsoon: 
                   A History of the Indian Ocean 
                  and Its Invaders
Author    : Richard Seymour Hall
Pages       : 608    
Publisher : HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.  
Price        : $ 0.61
ISBN        : 10-0006380832

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.
 
'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 civilization 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. It is the story of many marvels and many great adventures. 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. 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. Hall is a distinguished journalist and writer. He was born in 1925 and spent his childhood in Australia and England.

Review courtesy: www.amazon.com