The face of the modern world was created by the ships that bound the world together, from Arab dhows, to wooden clippers, to iron steamers, to gigantic container ships. This program traces the history of sea-borne commerce in the Orient: the Portuguese in the 16th century in Macao and Japan, the Dutch and the Dutch East India Company in the 17th century in what is today Indonesia, the rise and fall of Shanghai and Cochin, the consequences of the opening of the Suez Canal, which severed Africa from the trading world to its north. (26 minutes)