East Africa and the Indian Ocean

Abstract

For centuries East Africa had an integral place within the Indian Ocean world. While it existed at the periphery of the wider Indian Ocean in earlier periods, by the 18th and 19th centuries it was much more centrally engaged in these affairs.An interregional trade linked different sub-regions of East Africa to other Indian Ocean economies. While slave trading, slave raiding and their consequences provide one thematic focus of this book, Indian Ocean commercial networks were much more complex in the range of products exchanged, including luxury goods and staple food items, as well as enforced labor. Islam provides yet another connective tissue linking Eastern Africa to the Indian Ocean world and a cultural matrix in which popular beliefs and practices were transmitted.This volume brings together a set of important essays published on various dimensions of Eastern Africa's role within the Indian Ocean world written by Edward A. Alpers, Professor of History at UCLA, over four decades. In different ways, each of these papers seeks to demonstrate that one cannot understand the history of eastern Africa without considering its wider regional setting in the western Indian Ocean.