March 20, 2024: IHI & the BU Center for the Study of Asia are sponsoring a book talk by Dr. Grant Rhode, an IHI Senior Fellow, to discuss Great Power Clashes Along the Maritime Silk Road

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November 30th, 2023

This book talk will be held at The Pardee School of Global Studies at 121 Bay State Road on the BU campus.  All are invited.

Grant Rhode is a senior lecturer at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, adjunct professor at the U.S. Naval War College, and associate in research at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. He is an IHI Senior Fellow.  Dr. Rhode was trained in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., and researches and writes on ancient and modern maritime silk road issues.

About Great Power Clashes Along the Maritime Silk Road:

Current concerns in maritime Eurasia are centered on rising powers China and India. By way of background to understanding the current regional great power rivalry within maritime Eurasia, this book asks what we can learn from historic Eurasian maritime geopolitical players and their interactions that will inform and enlighten today’s international relations practitioners. 

Great Power Clashes along the Maritime Silk Road examines three seminal historical cases of maritime clashes in the China Seas, four in the Indian Ocean, and one in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Each of these is an example of local or regional conflict reflecting the circumstances of time and place. The cases have been chosen to provide a comparative framework of significant premodern maritime clashes distributed along the full Eurasian maritime perimeter.

Lessons include understanding struggles between continental and maritime powers in Eurasia, and understanding the decisive impact that naval leadership, intelligence, technology, alliances, and identity have had in the past and will have on the future.

The Naval Review, the official journal of the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy, has favorably reviewed Great Power Clashes Along the Maritime Silk Road, written by IHI Fellow, Dr. Grant Rhode.  According to the review, Rhode’s book “provides a highly interesting and informative read … It also features useful maps, charts and tables. This book will certainly appeal to anyone with an interest in the history of the Indo-Pacific region, its contemporary geopolitics, or the histories of the Ottoman Empire, India, China, Korea, or Japan.”