ABSTRACT

The sea has been the site of radical changes in human lives and national histories. It has been an agent of colonial oppression but also of indigenous resistance, a site of loss, dispersal and enforced migration but also of new forms of solidarity and affective kinship. Sea Changes re-evaluates the view that history happens mainly on dry land and makes the case for a creative reinterpretation of the role of the sea: not merely as a passage from one country to the next, but a historical site deserving close study.

chapter 1|12 pages

Introduction

The Sea Is History

chapter 2|24 pages

Deep Times, Deep Spaces

Civilizing the Sea

chapter 3|18 pages

Costume Changes

Passing at Sea and on the Beach

chapter 4|20 pages

The Global Economy and the Sulu Zone

Connections, Commodities, and Culture

chapter 5|16 pages

Ahab's Boat

Non-European Seamen in Western Ships of Exploration and Commerce

chapter 6|20 pages

Staying Afloat

Literary Shipboard Encounters from Columbus to Equiano

chapter 8|18 pages

Chartless Voyages and Protean Geographies

Nineteenth-Century American Fictions of the Black Atlantic

chapter 11|16 pages

Cast Away

The Uttermost Parts of the Earth