The Indian Ocean in world history / Edward A. Alpers.
2014
DS340 .A47 2014 (Mapit)
Available at General Collection
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Details
Title
The Indian Ocean in world history / Edward A. Alpers.
Author
Alpers, Edward A.
ISBN
9780195337877 paperback alkaline paper
0195337875 paperback alkaline paper
9780195165937 alkaline paper
0195165934 alkaline paper
0195337875 paperback alkaline paper
9780195165937 alkaline paper
0195165934 alkaline paper
Published
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2014.
Language
English
Description
172 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
Call Number
DS340 .A47 2014
Dewey Decimal Classification
909/.09824
Summary
"The Indian Ocean remains the least studied of the world's geographic regions, yet there have been major cultural exchanges across its waters and around its shores from the third millennium B.C.E. to the present day. Historian Edward A. Alpers explores the complex issues involved in cultural exchange in the Indian Ocean Rim region over the course of this long period of time by combining a historical approach with the insights of anthropology, art history, ethnomusicology, and geography. The Indian Ocean witnessed several significant diasporas during the past two millennia, including migrations of traders, indentured laborers, civil servants, sailors, and slaves throughout the entire basin. Persians and Arabs from the Gulf came to eastern Africa and Madagascar as traders and settlers, while Hadramis dispersed from south Yemen as traders and Muslim teachers to the Comoro Islands, Zanzibar, South India, and Indonesia. Southeast Asians migrated to Madagascar, and Chinese dispersed from Southeast Asia to the Mascarene Islands to South Africa. Alpers also explores the cultural exchanges that diasporas cause, telling stories of identity and cultural transformation through language, popular religion, music, dance, art and architecture, and social organization. For example, architectural and decorative styles in eastern Africa, the Red Sea, the Hadramaut, the Persian Gulf, and western India reflect cultural interchanges in multiple directions. Similarly, the popular musical form of taarab in Zanzibar and coastal East Africa incorporates elements of Arab, Indian, and African musical traditions, while the characteristic frame drum (ravanne) of sega, the widespread Afro-Creole dance of the Mascarene and Seychelles Islands, probably owes its ultimate origins to Arabia by way of Mozambique. The Indian Ocean in World History also discusses issues of trade and production that show the long history of exchange throughout the Indian Ocean world; politics and empire-building by both regional and European powers; and the role of religion and religious conversion, focusing mainly on Islam, but also mentioning Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity. Using a broad geographic perspective, the book includes references to connections between the Indian Ocean world and the Americas. Moving into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Alpers looks at issues including the new configuration of colonial territorial boundaries after World War I, and the search for oil reserves." -- Publisher's description.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 155-157) and index.
Series
New Oxford world history.
Record Appears in
On-Campus Resources > Books
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Table of Contents
Imagining the Indian Ocean
The ancient Indian Ocean
Becoming an Islamic sea
Intrusions and transitions in the early modern period
The long nineteenth century
The last century.
The ancient Indian Ocean
Becoming an Islamic sea
Intrusions and transitions in the early modern period
The long nineteenth century
The last century.