3 Review(s)

This third volume of André Wink’s acclaimed and pioneering Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World takes the reader from the late Mongol invasions to the end of the medieval period and the beginnings of early modern times in the late fifteenthand early sixteenth century. It breaks new ground by focusing attention on the role of geography, and more specifically on the interplay of nomadic, settled and maritimesocieties. In doing so, it presents a picture of the world of India and the Indian Ocean on the eve of the Portuguese discovery of the searoute: a world without stable parameters,of pervasive geophysical change, inchoate and instable urbanism, highly volatile and itinerant elites of nomadic origin, far-flung merchant diasporas, and a famine- and diseaseprone peasantry whose life was a gamble on the monsoon. André Wink is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of Land and Sovereignty in India and two previous volumes of Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World.