Asian Sea Straits

In September 2011 the Chinese Institute of Bonn University organised an international conference called Asian Sea Straits: Functions and History (c. 500 to 1700). One central idea of the conference was that, besides filtering the image of seaborne trade and exchange through the looking glass of coastal dwellers, or by linking it to different types of ports and networks, polities and empires, one may also try to explain the past by going back to the geographical 'essentials' first, before undertaking further steps. The nature of major sailing alleys and especially the role of narrow bottlenecks, or sea straits, belong to this geographical dimension which proves quite complex, indeed, once exposed to careful examination. Simply put, there was agreement in that the 'straits theme' would merit further studies, especially methodological investigations. The selection of studies presented in the this volume, as well as several papers read to the meeting which have already been published in the Journal of Asian History 46.2 (2012), are a modest step in that direction. Designed as a thematic issue like its JAH 'counterpart', the present volume of Orientierungen contains a further set of articles. This time the geographical arrangement is very broad and comprises two 'poles' – Western Asia and, once again, the Southeast Asian world.