Chokepoint: Hormuz and the Narrow Sea That Controlled the World’s Trade (Hidden Histories of the Islamic World) - Couverture souple

Khalil, Asmahan Mostafa Tawfik

Couverture souple

ISBN 13 : 9798163331789

Editeur : Independently published, 2026

Synopsis

The world’s most dangerous stretch of water is only a few dozen kilometers wide.

In 2026, war came to the Gulf. Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz. American warships moved in to force it open. The tankers stopped, and fuel prices climbed in every country on earth. Overnight, a narrow channel most people could not find on a map became the most important place in the world.

It has been here before.

For two thousand years, whoever held this gate decided who grew rich and who went hungry. Kings, merchants, admirals, and pirates fought over it with fleets and tolls, fortresses and blockades. And every one of them learned the same lesson the hard way.

Chokepoint takes you inside that long struggle, told through the people who lived it:

The admiral of Alexander the Great, who reached these shores with a starving fleet and nearly lost his men to the desert.

The merchant princes of Siraf, who sent their ships all the way to Canton and came home with the wealth of China.

The island lords of Kish, who taxed every vessel that passed and grew rich on the sea itself.

Hormuz, a city built on a bare rock of salt, with no water of its own, that bought every drop by the boatload and still became, in the words of its people, “the jewel in the ring of the world.”

The great Chinese treasure fleets, the Ottoman admirals, and a Portuguese conqueror who tried to take Hormuz by seizing its wells.

And the April day in 1622 when Persian soldiers and English gunners tore down the Portuguese flag and changed the balance of power in Asia.

Drawing on eyewitnesses who wrote in Arabic, Persian, Chinese, Portuguese, and English, this gripping narrative history explains what today’s headlines cannot: why this small strait matters so much, how earlier powers tried to control it, and why every blockade in its history has failed in the end.

The lesson of two thousand years is simple. This gate has always been worth more open than closed.

If you want to understand the crisis in the Gulf, start here.

Built and prepared on the original contemporary sources.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Independently published
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 13: 9798163331789
• Reliure: Taschenbuch
• Nombre de pages: 172
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Printed by Amazon on behalf of the author; https://www.amazon.de/hz/contact-us; ; c/o Amazon Media EU S.à.r.l., 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; L-1855; Luxembourg