Until Vasco da Gama discovered the sea-route to the East in 1497-1499 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...