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Bibliography & Readings


Appraising Risk builds on the excellent scholarship and research assembled by specialists and scholars across the globe, the readings below offer a selected list of relevant texts and projects for visitors who wish to learn more about our subject areas, methodological approach and historical focus.

We recommend the following texts as an introduction to the history of the Indian Ocean World:

  • Edward A. Alpers, East Africa and the Indian Ocean (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2009).
  • Edward A. Alpers, The Indian Ocean in World History (Oxford: Oxford university Press, 2014).
  • Sunil Amrith, Crossing the Bay of Bengal: Furies of Nature and Fortunes of Migrants, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013).
  • Sugata Bose, A Hundred Horizons. The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2006).
  • Gwyn Campbell, Africa and the Indian Ocean World from early times to 1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).
  • Gwyn Campbell (ed.), The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia (London: Routledge, 2003).
  • K.N Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
  • Andre Gunder Frank, ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley: Berkeley University Press, 1998).
  • Kenneth McPherson, The Indian Ocean: A History of People and the Sea (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993).
  • Michael N. Pearson, The Indian Ocean (London: Routledge, 2003).
  • Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988, 1993).
  • Tansen Sen, Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600-1400 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003).
  • Abdul Sheriff, Dhow Cultures of the Indian Ocean. Cosmopolitanism, Commerce and Islam (London: Hurst, 2010).
  • André Wink, Al-Hind. The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, 2 vols (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996, 1997).