HIST 354 - The British Empire and the Indian Ocean

FC SSCI CD

4 credits
The British Empire at its height covered a quarter of the earth’s landmass, making it history’s largest empire. It was also a quintessentially maritime empire. Beginning in India, seaborne rule spread to regions as diverse as Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. This seminar explores the experience of empire in colonial India and the Indian Ocean. We follow the circulation of peoples, goods, and ideas across monsoon highways, and we probe the processes that turned an expansive ocean into a ‘British lake.’ Topics include first-person accounts of mobility, historical fiction, and studies of port cities and oceanic networks.