The book is a refreshing addition to the expanding corpus of writings on the Indian Ocean and departs from the trodden path to attempt an understanding of maritime trade and inter-ethnic contact through an analysis of linguistic data on material culture, technology and agricultural adaptations across the Indian Ocean. It has two objectives as articulated by the author: one, to highlight the contribution of Southeast Asia, especially the Malay-speaking element, in the prehistory of the Indian Ocean; and second, to redefine pre-modern inter-ethnic trade and cultural contact across the Ocean. The book covers a large time span from the 2nd millennium BCE to the 1st millennium CE (p. vi). The author follows the methodology of historical linguistics to provide fresh insights. Particularly relevant for the study is the field of linguistic palaeontology and contact linguistics, both of which have been used to understand the nature of ancient societies through an analysis of the vocabulary used, either reconstructed, or, as attested to in literature (p. 6). As stated in Ch. 2, the author is well aware of the several pitfalls of the approach, such as the largely hypothetical reconstruction of proto-lexicons or determining the directionality and chronology of lexical borrowing. The author, however, continues to adopt it as secondary writings on maritime history of the Indian Ocean have reached sufficient levels of maturity to bear scrutiny. Also a critical mass of secondary literature is available to allow for interdisciplinary investigations. In Ch. 3 it is suggested that the beginnings of contact across the Bay of Bengal date to the second half of the second millennium BCE, based on the recovery of charcoal remains of sandalwood of possible Southeast Asian origin in the South Indian Neolithic context. These exchanges were conducted by small-scale maritime communities in which the datu or priest played an important role. There appears to be a qualitative change in the nature of contacts in the early centuries of the Common Era, as evident from the spread of the Sanskrit language and several concepts from South Asia. This is further supported by the find of a human tooth in Bali from a 1st-millennium BCE context belonging to an individual from north-east India (p. 15). The later sections of Ch. 3 discuss various aspects of metallurgy in Southeast Asia, especially the rich deposits of gold and tin in the Malay-speaking world and their trade involving small-scale local systems. The emphasis on the organization of maritime trade in small-scale units and changes over time is a welcome trend in the book, which needs to be developed through further research. Ch. 4 underscores inter-ethnic contact and lexical elements from insular Southeast Asia that have found their way into broader Indian Ocean communities, though it is often very difficult to date lexical transmissions. The next three chapters are devoted to plant translocations, reconstructing trade in spices and dispersal of maritime technology. Despite the generally accepted Southeast Asian origins of the sandalwood tree, the most widespread term used for it is candana, which is of Indo-Aryan derivation. Thus linguistic data needs critical examination through a variety of disciplines, as also factoring in of agents responsible for the dispersal of plant species. In contrast to Chs 5 and 6 where archaeobotanical data is available to supplement linguistic analysis, the lack of surviving wooden boats used from the prehistoric period onwards makes the study of dispersals of maritime technology more complex, as evident from Ch. 7, which focuses on the contribution of insular Southeast Asia to other regions of the Indian Ocean (p. 78). There is no denying that the life and culture of communities in insular Southeast Asia were closely linked to the sea. However, the chapter does not manage to move beyond the weltanschauung popularized by James Hornell (Water Transport, Newton Abbott, 1970), as evident from the discussion on the logboat and its wide prevalence in Oceania; or, the tracing of influences from one region to another, for instance, ‘Middle Eastern influence on South Asian watercraft’, though the author disputes the one-way directionality of technological diffusion (p. 80). What one misses is an analytical discussion based on diversity of boat types as existing at present, or which could be identified historically based on an analysis of linguistic data. More importantly, it is difficult to categorize boat types in water-tight compartments, as there is historical data to indicate the movement of material involved in boat construction, such as wood for planking and coconut coir for stitching across different regions of the Indian Ocean. A common feature of the sewn boats of the whole Indian Ocean area was the use of coir-rope for stitching. As coconut-palm plantations were restricted to certain parts of the littoral, coir-rope would have been one of the commodities in demand along the boat-building settlements of the coast. Even now, coir required for the beden or fishing boats constructed at Hafun in Somalia is brought from further south, probably Kenya or Zanzibar. Similarly, timber for planking is said to come from Mombasa and Tanzania via Mogadishu and from India via Mukalla or Aden. (see IJNA 9.4: 297–304, H. N. Chittick ‘Sewn Boats in the Western Indian Ocean and a Survival in Somalia’). The author refers to the continuing practice of import of teak from India to Socotra for the construction of traditional boats. This leads the author to suggest the notion of hybridity of maritime traditions of the Indian Ocean (p. 81). The Kadakkarapally boat found in a coconut grove in the Indian state of Kerala with no associated finds was radiocarbon dated to the 11th–12th century CE and represents a cargo-carrying sailing craft best suited for the backwaters and large rivers of Kerala at the southern tip of the Arabian Sea, as stated by the excavator (see INA Quarterly 31.2: 8, 2004, R. K. Pedersen ‘The shipwreck in the coconut grove: the Kadakkarapally boat’). This does not corroborate the author's contention that it represents a ‘hybrid ship-building tradition of the Bay of Bengal’ and instead underscores the need to study nautical traditions and practices in their local and regional contexts. Given the diversity of boatbuilding traditions of the Indian Ocean any attempts at identifying characteristic ships of the Indian Ocean through an inventory of the names, such as parau or junco (as in section 7.2) may be a futile pursuit. While European ship-types may be categorized on the basis of differences in their tackle, the same is not true of the watercraft of the Indian Ocean. In the case of cargo vessels, regional variations are often superficial and limited to the nomenclature used rather than significant technological differences between them. In contrast, the hull forms of fishing boats are more region specific, though, here again, more than one nomenclature may be used to define a vessel. For example, the terms patia and danga are often used interchangeably for clinker-built vessels on the Orissa coast. Another difference between the two is that while fishing craft are often built either by the community themselves or by itinerant boatbuilders, the large cargo vessels are constructed at boat yards. Thus the baghla and the gunjo are the Arab forms of the Indian kotia, the Arab bum the counterpart of the Indian dhangi and nauri, with the Indian batel representing the Arab sambuk (Hornell, 1970: 197). The author suggests that the word sambook is connected to the Old Malay sāmvau first mentioned in the Kedukan Bukit inscription of 682 CE for a watercraft used in military expeditions (p. 85). The term itself continued to be used in Old Khmer and Burmese inscriptions, though this reviewer would suggest caution in identifying terms referred to in different periods in inscriptions with current boat types. Section 7.3 discusses methods of plank fastening, where it is suggested that boat types with dowelled plank edges were introduced into South Asia by insular Southeast Asian shipbuilders (p. 88), while sections 7.4 and 7.5 examine data on western Indian Ocean sails, especially the widespread prevalence of the lateen sail; and insular Southeast Asian sails respectively. In Southeast Asia, there is evidence for the adoption of rectangular sails without booms, while the use of ‘unfixed sprit spars to hold up the sail’ in insular Southeast Asia was an indigenous invention (p. 91). The two final sections of the chapter deal with the outrigger, which was invented in Southeast Asia and distributed westward (7.6), and other nautical devices, such as paddles used for propulsion and stone anchors (7.7). Even though the outrigger seems to have spread through cultural contact, it was not indispensable for Southeast Asian watercraft and was only used for small boats, not for large ocean-going vessels. The lexical data on the outrigger is, however, very diverse and only three attestations may be linked to insular Southeast Asia. In contrast, the terminology for the Southeast Asian paddle used for propelling small watercraft and known as pƏngayuh in Malay seems to have been adopted in other parts of the Indian Ocean. Another example of the dispersal of nautical technology across the Ocean is the spread of anchor types, though here again there in no discernible correspondence with linguistic data. Thus the main objective of the book is to establish active participation of Malay-speaking seafarers from insular Southeast Asia in Indian Ocean maritime networks, based on linguistic borrowings from the Malay language into South Asia and East Africa. The maritime Malay communities, it is stressed, also exerted influence over other parts of Southeast Asia. The book contains two useful Appendices: one, recording Malay loanwords across the Indian Ocean; and the second containing a list of ‘Botanical Remains’. It opens out for exploration and research the field of linguistics, which has been hitherto under-researched.