"Empires and Encounters presents information on different aspects of human life in all parts of the world from the period 1350 to 1750. In the first centuries of that period people of different parts of the world were not only culturally different but also knew little or even nothing of each other. The Incas for instance had no idea of the existence of Europeans or Africans and vice versa. Inside large regions of the world, however, political interaction, as well as economic and cultural exchange, had been going on for many centuries and was during this period increasing in intensity because this was a time of worldwide empire-building. The chapters of the book examine Eurasia between Japan and Russia; the Ottoman and Iranian Empires of the Muslim world; Mughal India and the trading world of the Indian Ocean; the multicolored world of maritime Southeast Asia and Oceania; and the continents on both sides of the Atlantic under the growing impact of Europe. Europe at this time had no privileged power position, but it did enjoy a special role in establishing regular maritime interaction across the Atlantic and worldwide between the five macro-regions of the globe. The European world economy, based upon the silver of Spanish America, initiated modern globalization"--Provided by publisher.

Co-published in German as Weltreiche und Weltmeere : 1350-1750, by C.H. Beck Verlag, 2014.

Empires and frontiers in continental Eurasia / Peter C. Perdue -- The Ottoman Empire and the Islamic world / Suraiya Faroqhi -- South Asia and the Indian Ocean / Stephan Conermann -- Southeast Asia and Oceania / Reinhard Wendy and Jürgen G. Nagel -- Europe and the Atlantic world / Wolfgang Reinhard.