Author(s): Sujit Sivasundaram

History | India | The Pacific | Britain

This is a story of tides and coastlines, winds and waves, islands and beaches. It is also a retelling of indigenous creativity, agency, and resistance in the face of unprecedented globalization and violence.

Waves Across the South shifts the narrative of the Age of Revolutions and the origins of the British Empire; it foregrounds a vast southern zone that ranges from the Arabian Sea and southwest Indian Ocean across to the Bay of Bengal, and onward to the South Pacific and the Tasman Sea. As the empires of the Dutch, French, and especially the British reached across these regions, they faced a surge of revolutionary sentiment. Long-standing venerable Eurasian empires, established patterns of trade and commerce, and indigenous practice also served as a context for this transformative era. In addition to bringing long-ignored people and events to the fore, Sujit Sivasundaram opens the door to new and necessary conversations about environmental history, the consequences of historical violence, the legacies of empire, the extraction of resources, and the indigenous futures that Western imperialism cut short. The result is nothing less than a bold new way of understanding our global past, one that also helps us think afresh about our shared future.

Review:

'Fresh, sparkling and ground-breaking, Waves Across the South helps re-centre how we look at the world and opens up new perspectives on how we can look at regions, peoples and places that have been left to one side of traditional histories for far too long' - PETER FRANKOPAN

'A magisterial intervention in world history' -MARGOT FINN, PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

'A breathtaking book. Sujit Sivasundaram takes the familiar story of the "age of revolutions" and turns it upside down, putting the voices, the hopes and the struggles of the seafaring peoples of the Indian and Pacific oceans at the heart of his account of how the modern world was forged ... Global history at its finest: eloquent, surprising, and deeply moving' -SUNIL AMRITH, AUTHOR OF UNRULY WATERS

'Challenges our understanding of colonial history ... [The] outstanding volume takes us on a gripping journey across the globe ... [This] magisterial book brings to light a world history that has so far been cast aside by many world historians ... A master class in history writing' -OLIVETTE OTELE, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY OF SLAVERY AT BRISTOL UNIVERSITY

'[There are] many fascinating stories in this rich and stimulating new history ... Turns conventional wisdom upside down, and invites us to follow the making of the modern world from the Pacific instead ... This is big history' -SPECTATOR

'Fascinating ... Brings to life the "surge of indigenous politics" that marked this era' -FINANCIAL TIMES

'Brilliantly reconstructs how empire was made through voyages across oceans ... An exemplar of historical writing' - BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE

'He follows little-known voyages across the southern oceans accomplished by multi-ethnic crews ... He deftly outlines the singularity of the British Empire... As Sivasundaram convincingly argues in the global South this revolutionary age was defined by the way indigenous peoples responded to Western invasion' - LITERARY REVIEW

Author Biography: Sujit Sivasundaram was born and educated in Sri Lanka. He came to Cambridge in 1994 to study engineering and then natural sciences and history and philosophy of science. He has taught at LSE, EHESS in Paris, the University of Singapore, the University of Sydney, and the University of Cambridge. He is a world class historian specialising in world history, especially the Pacific and Indian oceans and their islands, the history of race, the history of the British Empire. Awards and Prizes: Philip Leverhulme Prize (for early-career contributions to research in the UK, 2012) Sackler Caird Fellowship at the National Maritime Museum Fellow and Councillor of the Royal Historical Society