In Jennifer L. Gaynor’s article “Ages of Sail, Ocean Basins, and Southeast Asia” (Journal of World History, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2013 by University of Hawai’I Press), she tries to pull the main stream focus from the European dominate narrative of history to a more inclusive historiography which would include peoples who were not part of that particular main stream event chain, by focusing on a more particular area as she leads us on a more micro-analytic discussion of South East Asia and it’s archipelagic zones, and the ocean basins that surround it, from the mid-15th century to the early 19th century. Jennifer is an Assistant Professor of History at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York (Amazon); she has written review articles…show more content… She suggests that “the existence of these lesser know missions to archipelagos farther east might well give us pause to reconsider the prominence of oceanic space in this story.” She stresses the importance of Ocean Basin and Archipelagos research, comparing them to the 1990’s focus on seas, suggesting that by doing such fringe work gives us the ability to see things afresh, and to see them from a different view. She says that using existing models did not capture the essence or importance of the South East Asian people nor their contributions to world history, and that its vast archipelagic zones, did not fit comfortably into an ocean basin nor continental perspective. She briefly mentions Fernand Braudel, possible alluding to his work in creation of a world-systems theory and his founding of the French Annales School of historical writing spoke of in class (World History: Ancient class notes 12/5/2017). She then mentions a few other historians that seem to have had similar sour outlooks of the historians before them, and how they took more focused perspectives in their studies and have brought great insights to…show more content… She says that South East Asia’s “shadowy presence” rests in part on formations of regional knowledge that look to India, China, and The Arabic world for its historical traditions, but stresses that outsiders where often important in the area, suggesting the prominence of “openness” of the region. Then she points her finger at a few authors: Meilink-Roelofsz and van Leur, claiming they down played certain information they were relaying, leading to the idea that the peoples of South East Asia were unable to conduct oceanic navigation or trade, though it sounded to me van Leur said they had “a sizable fleet of smallish vessels involved exclusively in regional networks and maintained by merchants of the peddler category”, and even she claims they were “the main” carriers working the eastern segments of international trade in the Indian Ocean, highlighting the idea that bad representations can heavily impact the historical view. But why these South East Asian ships and maritime practices disappeared is yet to be
