A Sea of Wealth

A Sea of Wealth is a sweeping retelling of the Omani position in the Indian Ocean. Here the reign of Oman's longest-serving ruler, Saʿid bin Sultan, offers a keyhole through which we can peer to see the entangled histories of Arabia and the Gulf, South Asia, and East Africa in the Omani Empire. In centering this empire, Nicholas P. Roberts argues that Arabs, Africans, and Asians living and working throughout its domains actively shaped the conditions of commercial engagement in the Western Indian Ocean. They united the empire's domains into a single oceanic marketplace in which Europeans and Americans in the nineteenth century had to accede if they wished to succeed. Drawing upon research in three languages and using primary and secondary sources from four continents, A Sea of Wealth is told as a vivid narrative full of colorful characters. Ultimately, Roberts reveals that the Omani Empire was a critical space in the emergence of modern global capitalism.