Sea and Ocean Basins as Frameworks of Historical Analysis

Area studies, asian studies, and the pacific basin

“…Here, what I have in mind is a much broader scale, of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Authors have typically lumped seas and oceans together, neglecting their very different scale (Bentley 1999). One of the progenitors of the oceanic approach was Duke University's Oceans Connect Project, launched in 1997 from a Ford Foundation Grant with the goal of revitalizing area studies.…”

Mapping Space and Mobility in the Red Sea Region, c.1500–1950

“…In other words, and espousing Jerry Bentley's insight that most maritime spaces are innately fractured, fragmented, and unstable arenas, the host of intra-regional and trans-marine commercial circuits, labor flows, and religious networks that animated the Red Sea produced spaces and features of varying degrees of cohesiveness and integration. 20 Such an approach contributes to an effort to recast the history of the region with the Red Sea as an organizing framework for historical and social scientific analysis and allows us to think more usefully about the Red Sea as a region sui generis characterized by multilayered, interconnected, and overlapping circuits and networks operating within it, while still linked to both the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean areas.…”

Born Again: Globalization's Sixteenth Century Origins (Asian/Global Verus European Dynamics)

“…15 15 For a well‐balanced consideration of seas and oceans as frameworks for historical analysis, see Bentley's (1999) view of globalization's sixteenth century origins. …”

“…For a well-balanced consideration of seas and oceans as frameworks for historical analysis, seeBentley's (1999) view of globalization's sixteenth century origins.16 Similarly, the Concise Oxford Dictionary(2001) offers: 'Global . .…”