Historical studies on the economic and social exchanges between the nations of the Indian Ocean, as also their interactions with the hierarchies of indigenous and colonial powers, hold the key to our understanding of peoples, institutions and events in contemporary Asia and Africa. Based on a variety of European and indigenous sources, the recent scholarship has successfully revealed how the expanding dynamics of transnational trade, supported by the cultural transactions between the participating countries had transformed the Indian Ocean into a civilisational entity, with strong connections to the global economy since the tenth century. It has also established that the colonial interventions while impacting on these linkages in the nineteenth century could not disrupt them permanently. With these dislocations and continuities in mind, we invite papers which highlight the emergence of the polyglot port-cities; the integrated business practices; the multiethnic merchant...
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