History of the Indian Ocean By August Toussaint A review

https://archive.org/details/HISTORYOFTHEINDIANOCEAN_201505

History of the Indian Ocean
Auguste Toussaint

London, 1961

There are few historical studies of the Indian Ocean, unlike the Atlantic Ocean and has is now becoming apparent the Pacific Ocean. Perhaps the end of the Roman Empire in the fifth century and the disruption of the trans oceanic trade that centered around the ports of the Red Sea had a role to play in the neglect of this Ocean. Even the Ottoman intervention in the Indian Ocean following the successful conquest of Egypt is hardly taken note of in recent works which deal with the Portuguese conquest of the region in the early sixteenth century. It is not surprising the the post colonial perspective and intellectual fashions have contributed to this neglect of the history of the Indian Ocean. Nationalism demanded that each nation inscribes itself in the tableau of modernity by bestowing upon itself a History, as though the past seamlessly paved the way for the emergence of a "modern": nation-state. Indian Historiography, especially of the Modern Period is a prime example of this trend.

The consequence of such neglect has been the benign neglect of the Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean was not a barrier. It facilitated trade between the two most advanced and economically most powerful civilizations of the world before the advent of White countries: India and China. There have been very few studies of the historical dimensions of the Indian Ocean. August Toussaint published this book in 1961 and I have uploaded it on arcchive .org as it serves as an excellent introduction to  the Indian Ocean. The book was downloaded from the digital Archives of India and was converted into pdf by Shri Yogeswar Sastry. I have done this as this book is not easily availbele to researchers.

Asian Encounters: Exploring Connected Histories

  Asian Encounters: Exploring Connected Histories\
Ed Upinder Singh and Pandya Dhar
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014

One of the many unfortunate aspects of India's tryst with destiny is that its foundational role as a civilization has been largely ignored by historians who were quick to latch on to the notion of India as a "nation state" and its encounter with China, South east Asia and the rest of mainland Asia has been underplayed. This neglect of India's larger role in Asian history was welcomed by the newly emergent nations of the region in the post World War II epoch, even as the Americans and the French were busy fashioning their own spheres of influence in the region. The plea or construct of Autonomous History meant underplaying the civilizational role of India in bringing the written script, ideas of statecraft and kingship, architectural and iconographic themes into the region. The famous notion of Indianization was abandoned and all the states of the region marched to the beat of the nation state. Now it seems the wheel has turned a full circle and the book under review reintroduces themes which had laid dormant over the decades since decolonization. The book brings together 10 papers which have been arranged in four thematic sections. Hermann Kulke sets the historiographical  horizon in the very first paper in which he reviews the abiding influence of India on the early cultures of Southeast Asia. After having been driven underground, the study of Indian cultural influences has once again resurfaced as new excavations in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Indonesia have led to the discovery of new artifacts and sites. 

Geoff Wade has studied in depth the impact of the Ming voyages of exploration and trade in the early fifteenth century. His study is based on Chinese language sources and is an attempt at explaining the voyages of Zheng-He. There have been several interesting studies of the Ming voyages, and Geoff Wade has reexamined the political and military context of the voyages within the overarching ideological thrust toward providing a historical justification for China and its expansionist policy.  Tansens Sen has studied the military intervention of China in the Indian Ocean region and pointedly states that Indian notions of statecraft and kingship excluded the Sea. 

The studies undertaken  by Osmund Bopearachi, Yumikio Yamada, Suchandra Ghosh are interesting forays into areas which have not been studied hitherto. This book is a welcome addition to the growing body of works on Indian trade and civilizational encounter with Southeast Asia.