The Indian Ocean - Michael Pearson [1]
Yet since seas are in themselves so rich,and since for centuries they alone gave access to the wealth of many distant regions, land powers have put forward ambitious claims to exercise authority over them. In Europe the justification or denial of such title has concerned thinkers and apologists since the days of Columbus and Vasco da Gama. Economic, political or strategic necessity, real or imagined, stimulated the growth of navies, which became formidable expressions of the power of the modern state. Seaborne commerce entailed the construction of ships which, however propelled, were for long among the most expensive and technologically advanced products of contemporary economies. The shipping industries of the world support a labour force whose social organisation and way of life radically differ from those of the rest of society.
But there is more to the history of the sea than the impressive chronicle of man's triumph over the elements, or of battles fought, freight's carried and ships launched. Everywhere seas and oceans have had a significant cultural influence on the civilisations adjoining them.
These themes, and much else besides, are examined by Michael Pearson in this illuminating and authoritative book. Professor Pearson is internationally renowned for his innovative studies of the Portuguese pioneers in India and for his stimulating writings on the Indian Ocean and maritime history in general. In this new and fascinating work he brings together the fruits of a lifetime's scholarship. The learning is impressive, but lightly borne, the writing felicitous and the whole enriched by a warm sympathy for, and close familiarity with the area. His book will be invaluable not only to scholars, but to all interested in the history of an ocean for centuries the meeting place of some of the world's most distinguished civilisations and of political, economic and cultural forces from much of the globe. It is particularly fitting too that this study is from a scholar based in Australia, the source in recent years of so many seminal ideas and works on the history of the sea.
Geoffrey Scammell
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Preface
My thanks to my former colleagues in the School of History, University of New South Wales, especially its several Heads of School, and to successive Deans of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Onesimo Almeida and Charles Neu made it possible for me to spend a very productive (and extremely underemployed) four months at Brown University in the Fall of 2000. Librarians on four continents have been universally helpful. My thanks to Geoffrey Scammell for first inviting me to undertake this task, which fell to me after the untimely death of a dear colleague and friend, Ashin Das Gupta. Victoria Peters was a firm, but supportive, senior editor at Routledge, and is responsible for this book not being about twice as long as it is. For research assistance I thank Philippa Colin, and (yet again) Martin Braach-Maksvytis. My immediate family, Denni and James, have always taken a keen interest, while Ben and Mathew supported me from afar.
Michael Pearson
A note on names and measures
As is usual, deciding on these matters has been a perplexing task. I use modern, indigenous, spellings of place names when I consider they have achieved wide currency: thus Mumbai, Melaka, Kolkata, Chennai. When this is not the case I have used older, more familiar, spellings: thus Calicut, not Kozhikode. I am aware that many readers will be more used to Bombay than to Mumbai. However, many of these major ports