The document summarizes the integration of the Indian Ocean region through trade, migration, and Islam over different eras. It discusses major empires like the Achaemenid and Mauryan that expanded trade networks in the region. It also outlines the role of various powers like the Portuguese, English, Dutch, and Indians in the colonial era trade. The document highlights how Islam and figures like Tagore helped unite the region culturally and religiously. It is accompanied by illustrations related to the topics.

1. The Indian Ocean:
Integration Across Eras through
Trade, Migration, and Islam
Sugata Bose
Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History
and Affairs, Department of History,
Harvard University

2. The Gradual Integration of the
Indian Ocean Trade Network

3. The Indian Ocean

4. Achaemenid Empire
(First Persian Empire)
ca. 550 – 336 BCE

5. Mauryan Empire
(321 – 185 BCE)

6. Cochin Harbor with Chinese Nets
(west coast of Indian peninsula)

8. Gathering of Sufis
Mughal India, 17th century

9. Vasco da Gama’s Tombstone
in Cochin

10. The Portuguese in the Indian Ocean

11. The English and Dutch in the Indian
Ocean

12. Indian merchants and bankers
(“intermediary capital”)
remained important under
British colonialism

13. Indian Indentured Laborers Arriving
in Natal, South Africa

14. Gandhi in South Africa
(third from left)

15. Islam continued to unite the Indian
Ocean religiously and culturally

16. Tagore’s visit to Iran and Iraq
illustrates this shared religious
sensibility

17. Tagore with a Bedouin Chief in Iraq

19. List of Illustrations
3. The Indian Ocean, 1935 (Bose, A Hundred Horizons, based on original in Pusey Library Map Room, Harvard University)
4. The Persian Empire. (Department of History, US Military Academy via Wikimedia Commons.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Persian_Empire,_490_BC.png)
5. The Maurya Dynasty. (Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maurya_Dynasty_in_265_BCE.jpg)
6. Cochin Harbor with Chinese fishing nets (Photo by Sugata Bose)
7. The Indian Ocean, 1935 (Bose, A Hundred Horizons, based on original in Pusey Library Map Room, Harvard University)
8. A Gathering of Sufis/Dervishes. Mughal miniature, 1595.
9. Vasco de Gama’s Tomb in Cochin (Photo by Sugata Bose)
10. Map of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean (Wikimedia Commons,
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portuguese_discoveries_and_explorationsV2en.png)
11. Map of the English and Dutch in the Indian Ocean (K.N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean )
13. Indians arriving in Natal (Bose, A Hundred Horizons, from Museum Africa, Johannesburg)
14. Gandhi and Leung Quinn, 1908 (Bose, A Hundred Horizons, from Vithalbhai Jhaveri/GandhiServe)
16. Tagore at Hafiz’s Grave (Bose, A Hundred Horizons, from Rabindra Bhavan, Viswa Bharati, Santiniketan)
17. Tagore with a Bedouin Chief in Iraq (Bose, A Hundred Horizons, from Rabindra Bhavan, Viswa Bharati, Santiniketan)
18. Poem-painting, Baghdad, May 24, 1932 (Bose, A Hundred Horizons, from Rabindra Bhavan, Viswa Bharati,
Santiniketan)
Recorded by Sugata Bose, Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs, Department of History, Harvard University