Introduction: Asian Maritime Networking Centered in Fifteenth Century Melaka

Abstract

Abstract This introductory chapter and those that follow in this issue of JESHO celebrate the 500th anniversary of the c.1400–1511 strategic Melaka port-of-trade based Sultanate that controlled the Straits of Melaka maritime passageway connecting the Western and Eastern Indian Oceans to the China and Java Seas and beyond in eastern Asia until the Portuguese seizure of Melaka in 1511. As such, these studies update prior JESHO publications that have addressed Melaka’s history since the Journal’s inception.