A comprehensive history in English of the Comoros, an archipelago of volcanic islands off the south-east coast of Africa.

Many people today have never heard of the Comoros, but these islands were once part of a prosperous regional trading economy that stretched halfway around the world. A key node in the trading networks of the Indian Ocean, the Comoros prospered by exchanging slaves and commodities with Arab and Indian merchants. By the sixteenth century, the archipelago served as an important supply point on the route from Europe to Asia. The twentieth century brought the establishment of French colonial rule and a plantation economy. Since declaring its independence in 1975, the Comoros has been blighted by more than twenty coups, a radical revolutionary government and a mercenary regime. Today, the island nation suffers chronic mismanagement and relies on remittances from a diaspora community in France. Nonetheless, the Comoros is largely peaceful and culturally vibrant-- connected to the outside world in the internet age, but, at the same time, still slightly apart. Iain Walker traces the history and unique culture of these enigmatic islands, from their first settlement by Africans, Arabs and Austronesians, through their heyday within the greater Swahili world, to their decline as a forgotten outpost of the French colonial empire.

In the late 19th century, the port of Massawa, in Eritrea on the Red Sea, was a thriving, vibrant, multiethnic commercial hub. Red Sea Citizens tells the story of how Massawa rose to prominence as one of Northeast Africa's most important shipping centers. Jonathan Miran reconstructs the social, material, religious, and cultural history of this mercantile community in a period of sweeping change. He shows how Massawa and its citizens benefited from migrations across the Indian Ocean, the Arabian peninsula, Egypt, and the African interior. Miran also notes the changes that took place in Massawa as traders did business and eventually settled. By revealing the dynamic processes at play, this book provides insight into the development of the Horn of Africa that extends beyond borders and boundaries, nations and nationalism.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A mesmerizing new historical novel” (O, The Oprah Magazine) from Lisa See, the bestselling author of The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, about female friendship and devastating family secrets on a small Korean island. Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls living on the Korean island of Jeju, are best friends who come from very different backgrounds. When they are old enough, they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective, led by Young-sook’s mother. As the girls take up their positions as baby divers, they know they are beginning a life of excitement and responsibility—but also danger. Despite their love for each other, Mi-ja and Young-sook find it impossible to ignore their differences. The Island of Sea Women takes place over many decades, beginning during a period of Japanese colonialism in the 1930s and 1940s, followed by World War II, the Korean War, through the era of cell phones and wet suits for the women divers. Throughout this time, the residents of Jeju find themselves caught between warring empires. Mi-ja is the daughter of a Japanese collaborator. Young-sook was born into a long line of haenyeo and will inherit her mother’s position leading the divers in their village. Little do the two friends know that forces outside their control will push their friendship to the breaking point. “This vivid…thoughtful and empathetic” novel (The New York Times Book Review) illuminates a world turned upside down, one where the women are in charge and the men take care of the children. “A wonderful ode to a truly singular group of women” (Publishers Weekly), The Island of Sea Women is a “beautiful story…about the endurance of friendship when it’s pushed to its limits, and you…will love it” (Cosmopolitan).

This book is about a ‘Small Island’, namely Mauritius in the southwestern Indian Ocean. It is also about a ‘Large Ocean’, the Indian Ocean world—its peoples, histories and cultures. It casts light on the life of an island through what is known not only about the island itself, but also through what is known about the wider Indian Ocean world. It is also about the Indian Ocean world in that it focuses on an island, which, in many senses and dimensions, is not only a model of, but in some respects also a model for wider developments and features of relevance to the Indian Ocean world as a whole.

An innovative collection of essays that foregrounds specific cargoes as a means to understand connectivity and mobility across the Indian Ocean world. Scholars have long appreciated the centrality of trade and commerce in understanding the connectivity and mobility that underpin human experience in the Indian Ocean region. But studies of merchant and commercial activities have paid little attention to the role that cargoes have played in connecting the disparate parts of this vast oceanic world. Drawing from the work of anthropologists, geographers, and historians, Cargoes in Motion tells the story of how material objects have informed and continue to shape processes of exchange across the Indian Ocean. By following selected cargoes through both space and time, this book makes an important and innovative contribution to Indian Ocean studies. The multidisciplinary approach deepens our understanding of the nature and dynamics of the Indian Ocean world by showing how transoceanic connectivity has been driven not only by economic, social, cultural, and political factors but also by the materiality of the objects themselves. Essays by: Edward A. Alpers Fahad Ahmad Bishara Eva-Maria Knoll Karl-Heinz Kohl Lisa Jenny Krieg Pedro Machado Rupert Neuhöfer Mareike Pampus Hannah Pilgrim Burkhard Schnepel Hanne Schönig Tansen Sen Steven Serels Julia Verne Kunbing Xiao

The Pacific, long a source of fantasies for EuroAmerican consumption and a testing ground for the development of EuroAmerican production, is often misrepresented by the West as one-dimensional, culturally monolithic. Although the Asia/Pacific region occupies a prominent place in geopolitical thinking, little is available to readers outside the region concerning the resistant communities and cultures of Pacific and Asian peoples. Asia/Pacific as Space of Cultural Production fills that gap by documenting the efforts of diverse indigenous cultures to claim and reimagine Asia/Pacific as a space for their own cultural production. From New Zealand to Japan, Taiwan to Hawaii, this innovative volume presents essays, poems, and memoirs by prominent Asia/Pacific writers that resist appropriation by transnational capitalism through the articulation of autonomous local identities and counter-histories of place and community. In addition, cultural critics spanning several locations and disciplines deconstruct representations--particularly those on film and in novels--that perpetuate Asia/Pacific as a realm of EuroAmerican fantasy. This collection, a much expanded edition of boundary 2, offers a new perception of the Asia/Pacific region by presenting the Pacific not as a paradise or vast emptiness, but as a place where living, struggling peoples have constructed contemporary identities out of a long history of hegemony and resistance. Asia/Pacific as Space of Cultural Production will prove stimulating to readers with an interest in the Asia/Pacific region, and to scholars in the fields of Asian, American, Pacific, postcolonial, and cultural studies. Contributors. Joseph P. Balaz, Chris Bongie, William A. Callahan, Thomas Carmichael, Leo Ching, Chiu Yen Liang (Fred), Chungmoo Choi, Christopher L. Connery, Arif Dirlik, John Fielder, Miriam Fuchs, Epeli Hau`ofa, Lawson Fusao Inada, M. Consuelo León W., Katharyne Mitchell, Masao Miyoshi, Steve Olive, Theophil Saret Reuney, Peter Schwenger, Subramani, Terese Svoboda, Jeffrey Tobin, Haunani-Kay Trask, John Whittier Treat, Tsushima Yuko, Albert Wendt, Rob Wilson