Connected oceans

This book is a celebration of the illustrious career and the scholarly impact of Professor Leos Müller. Inspired by his work, a truly international group of scholars here present nineteen chapters of original research. This collection represents the tip of an academic iceberg of those inspired by Leos’s passion for the global connections which the seas and oceans provide. In bringing together archeologists, ethnologists, and historians of various kinds, this book reflects his influence as a colleague, teacher and friend. It also reflects the international nature of Leos’s research: these chapters geographically span from Bohemia to Scandinavia, and the Americas to Asia. They include studies on merchant houses and the iron trade; consuls and diplomacy; Sweden’s trade links with China, the Mediterranean and the Transoceanic worlds; the emergence of international legal systems and neutrality. The more distasteful issues of slavery and piracy are not overlooked and form components of several chapters. As such, these chapters collectively form key components to the development of global history, a subject which our esteemed colleague holds very dear to his heart. Thereby, in the spirit of Leos Müller’s own research, this book illustrates that political history is also economic history, and that maritime history is also global history. Indeed, the collection incontrovertibly demonstrates the links between the disciplines represented and thus, beyond contention, allow us insights into the Connected Oceans which are at the heart of this volume.