This is a story of tides and coastlines, winds and waves, islands and beaches. It is also a retelling of indigenous creativity, agency, and resistance in the face of unprecedented globalization and violence. Waves Across the South shifts the narrative of the Age of Revolutions and the origins of the British Empire; it foregrounds a vast southern zone that ranges from the Arabian Sea and southwest Indian Ocean across to the Bay of Bengal, and onward to the South Pacific and the Tasman Sea.
As the empires of the Dutch,
French, and especially the British reached across these regions, they
faced a surge of revolutionary sentiment. Long-standing venerable
Eurasian empires, established patterns of trade and commerce, and
indigenous practice also served as a context for this transformative
era. In addition to bringing long-ignored people and events to the
fore, Sujit Sivasundaram opens the door to new and necessary
conversations about environmental history, the consequences of
historical violence, the legacies of empire, the extraction of
resources, and the indigenous futures that Western imperialism cut
short. The result is nothing less than a bold new way of understanding
our global past, one that also helps us think afresh about our shared
future.
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