This volume comprises a selection of essays by scholars from a variety of disciplines that discuss the exchange relationship between Africa and the wider Indian Ocean world (IOW), a macro-region running from East Africa to China, from early times to about 1300 CE. The rationale for regarding this macro-region as a “world” is the central significance of the monsoon system which facilitated the early emergence of long-distance trans-IOW maritime exchange of commodities, peoples, plants, animals, technologies and ideas. This volume comprises a selection of essays by scholars from a variety of disciplines that discuss the exchange relationship between Africa and the wider Indian Ocean world (IOW), a macro-region running from East Africa to China, from early times to about 1300 CE. The rationale for regarding this macro-region as a “world” is the central significance of the monsoon system which facilitated the early emergence of long-distance trans-IOW maritime exchange of commodities, peoples, plants, animals, technologies and ideas. Gwyn Campbell is a Canada Research Chair, and Director of the Indian Ocean World Centre, at McGill University, Canada. He has published widely on Indian Ocean world themes, including An Economic History of Imperial Madagascar, 1750-1895 (2005) and David Griffiths and the Missionary "History of Madagascar" (2012). He is currently completing a manuscript on Africa and the Indian Ocean world from early times to 1900.