Forthcoming Book: Land and Maritime Empires in the Indian Ocean

Land and Maritime Empires in the Indian Ocean by B. Nicolini and S. de Silva Jayasuriya, Educatt, Milan, 2017, in press

Today the history of the Indian Ocean has gained a renewed interest as it reminds us of the greatest mobility and traversal with such an impact that it forces us to rethink how the processes of such encounters operate and what the areas stand for. Many stories still remain untold inside this cosmopolitan interregional arena. The occasion of this book is here therefore to try to reshape our understanding of Africa and Asia. Understanding Land and Maritime Empires in Indian Ocean from different methodological perspectives and different themes and cultures is the main motive of this collection of studies. The two Authors did try to reread the role of the Indian Ocean history possibly without the classical perimetral definitions of traditional politics and international relations.

Read more about the book here.

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Prof. Beatrice Nicolini Ph.D. has a degree in International Relations and Comparative Government from Harvard University, U.S.A. and graduated in Political Sciences from Catholic University, Milan, Italy. She has a Ph.D. inHistory of Africa from Siena University, Italy. She teaches History and Institutions of Africa and Religions, Conflicts and Slavery. She is a member of the Ph.D. School Committee ‘History and Politics’ at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy. Her research focuses on the connections between South Western Asia, the Persian/Arab Gulf, and Sub-Saharan East Africa. The history of the Indian Ocean, trade routes, and development issues are her main research topics through archive and fieldwork investigations. She has received grants and recognition from the Sultanate of Oman and from the UK for her research. She has published more than 100 publications, most of them in English, and a number of them have been translated into Arabic.

Her subject matter expertise includes:    History of the Indian Ocean, Social Sciences & Humanities (General) Human Migration African History Middle Eastern &  Islamic Studies Slavery & Abolitionism Terrorism, Insurgency & Political Violence

Dr Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study (University of London) and an elected Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society (Great Britain & Ireland). She is a former member of the UNESCO International Scientific Committee of the Slave Route Project (Paris), rapporteur of its Bureau and currently a member of the UNESCO UK National Commission of Experts.

In addition to numerous articles in academic journals and chapters in books, Shihan is the author of six books – ‘The Portuguese in the East: A Cultural History of a Maritime Trading Empire’ (I. B. Tauris, London), ‘African Identity in Asia: Cultural Effects of Forced Migration’ (Markus Wiener, Princeton) and ‘African Diaspora in Asian trade routes and cultural memories (Edwin Mellen, UK), An Anthology of Indo-Portuguese Verse (Edwin Mellen, UK), Indo-Portuguese of Ceylon (Athena, London) and Tagus to Taprobane: Portuguese Impact on the Socioculture of Sri Lanka from 1505AD (Tisara Prakasakayo, Sri Lanka).