BOOK REVIEW: Empire of the Winds

The Global Role of Asia’s Great Archipelago. By Philip Bowring. I.B Taurus. Hardcover, 317 pp, with bibliography and index. US$28.99, Amazon

Centuries before the Chinese eunuch Zheng He made his epic seven voyages of discovery across the southern seas, the Austronesian peoples of the vast archipelago to the south of China had conquered the seas all the way to Madagascar, 7,000 km across the Indian Ocean.

The region, according to author Philip Bowring, should be known as “Nusantaria,” an empir…