WAVES ACROSS THE SOUTH

The Indian and Pacific oceans constitute a forgotten quarter of this planet, brought here together perhaps for the first time in a sustained work of history by the Cambridge academic. The decades straddling the late 18th and early 19th centuries, called the 'Age of Revolutions', traditionally uncovers an Atlantic triangle of grand defence including the American Revolution, the French Revolution and revolts in the Caribbean and then independence movements in Latin America in the early 19th century. Among what was made anew are the organisation of politics, the conception of equality and rights, the mechanics of governance and empire, the status of labour and enslaved people, the workings of technology and science and the characterisations of nation and self. The intention of this history is to turn the story of the dawn of our times inside out and insist on the critical significance of the people and places in this oceanic tract. A sequence of voices across the sea embody an energetic indigenousness: Pacific Islander, Maori, Aboriginal Australian, Arab, Qasimi, Omani, Parsi, Javanese, Burmese, Chinese, Indian, Sinhalese, Tamil, Malay, Mauritian, Malagasy and Khoisan perspectives come into view. These and other peoples took passage as sailors, partners, fighters, labourers and travellers in these decades of unprecedented globalisation. Great empires, political units, kingdoms were realigned or organised from Oman to Tonga and Sri Lanka and venerable Eurasian empires were transformed at their maritime frontiers. Here is heavy militarised British Colonial states as the Empire spread with Allies and collaborators and sought to neutralise or adopt the ideas, people, structures and modes of organisation which arose from the age of revolutions from 1790 to 1850. Superbly illustrated throughout, very useful Timeline and series of maps. 468pp, 2020 first edition.