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People

• Director
• Associates
  • Clarence-Smith, W.
  • Freitag, U.
  • Pearson, M.
  • Prakash, O.
  • Ray, H. P.
  • Sheriff, A.
  • Schottenhammer, A.
  • Soodyall, H.
  • Warren, J.
  • Worden, N.
• Research Associates
  • Machado, P.
  • Vink, M.
  • Vernet, T.
• McGill Faculty Affiliates
  • Echenberg, M.
  • Elbourne, E.
• PhD Students
  • Ferguson, M.
  • Ghabrial, S.
  • Rath, Andrew
  • Serels, S.
  • Tesfaye, F.
• MA Students
  • Shivji, N.
• Graduate Assistants
  • Chowdhury, R.
  • Sayles, J.
  • Seagle, C.
• Past Affiliates

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• Website Designers

IOWC Associates

Michael Pearson

New-Zealand born Michael Pearson, who gained his PhD at the University of Michigan, is Professor Emeritus at the University of New South Wales, Australia, and Adjunct Professor of Humanities at the University of Technology, Sydney. An internationally renowned scholar who has written pioneering works on Indian and Indian Ocean World history, Michael Pearson has been the recipient of a number of prestigious awards including the Watamull Prize for the best book on Indian history published in the USA (1975-76). He was elected a Fellow of the Oriental Society of Australia in 1985, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1990 and a Fellow of the Heras Society (Bombay) in 1992. He is also a Member of the Advisory Board for the ABC-Clio Encyclopedia of World History.

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Selected Publications

Books

• 2007. The Indian Ocean , London, Routledge, paperback edition.
• 2007. Co-editor, Metahistory: History Questioning History, Lisbon, Nova Vega.
• 2005. The World of the Indian Ocean, 1500-1800: Studies in Economic, Social and Cultural History, Variorum Collected Studies Series, Aldershot, Ashgate Publishers.
• 2003. The Indian Ocean, London and New York, Routledge.
• 1998. Port Cities and Intruders: the Swahili Coast, India, and Portugal in the Early Modern Era, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998, paper back edition.
• 1996. Editor, Spices in the Indian Ocean World, "An Expanding World, vol. 11," Aldershot, Variorum.
• 1996. Guest co-editor, Asia and Europe: Commerce, Colonialism and Cultures: Essays in Honour of Sinnappah Arasaratnam, in South Asia [Special Issue], vol. XIX, November.
• 1996. Pilgrimage to Mecca: the Indian Experience, Princeton, Markus Wiener, (a greatly revised version of Pious Passengers).
• 1994. Pious Passengers: the Hajj in earlier times, Delhi, Sterling Publishers; London, C. Hurst and Co.
• 1988. Before Colonialism: Theories on Asian-European Relations, 1500-1750, Delhi, Oxford University Press. (The Heras Memorial Lectures for 1987).
• 1987. The Portuguese in India, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press; reprinted 1990. (The New Cambridge History of India, vol. I, 1) Indian edition, Orient Longman, Bombay, 1989, second Indian edition 1990; Portuguese translation from Editorial Teorema, 1991, paper back edition from CUP, 2006.
• 1987. Co-editor, India and the Indian Ocean, 1500-1800, Calcutta, Oxford Uni­versity Press, 1987, 2nd edition, OUP, New Delhi.
• 1985. Editor, Legitimacy and Symbols: the South Asian Writings of F.W. Buck­ler, Ann Arbor, Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, The University of Michigan. (Michigan Papers on South and Southeast Asia, no. 26).
• 1981. Coastal Western India: Studies from the Portuguese Records, New Delhi, Concept Publishers. (Xavier Centre of Historical Research Studies Series no. 2).
• 1979. Co-editor, The Age of Partnership: Europeans in Asia before Dominion, Honolulu, The University Press of Hawaii.
• 1976. Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat: the Response to the Portuguese in the Sixteenth Century, Berkeley, University of California Press; New Delhi, Munshiram Manoharlal, 1976; second Indian edition, 1984; Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, Japanese translation, 1984.

Articles

(* indicates a publication republished in The World of the Indian Ocean)

• 2008. “Afterword,” in Edward Simpson and Kai Kresse, eds, Struggling with History: Islam and Cosmopolitanism in the western Indian Ocean, London, Hurst, and New York, Columbia University Press, pp. 357-72.
• 2007. “East Africa and the Indian Ocean World,” in Borges and Pearson, eds, Metahistory: History Questioning History, Lisbon, Nova Vega, pp. 485-95.
• 2007. “Creating a Littoral Community: Muslim reformers in the early modern Indian Ocean World,” in Charles Parker and Jerry Bentley, eds, Between the Middle Ages and Modernity: Individual and Community in the Early Modern World, Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 155-65.
• 2007. “Studying the Indian Ocean World: Problems and Opportunities,” in H.P. Ray and Edward Alpers, eds., Cross Currents and Community Networks: Encapsulating the History of the Indian Ocean World, New Delhi, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library and OUP, pp.13-32.
• 2007. “Markets and Merchant Communities in the Indian Ocean: Locating the Portuguese” in Portuguese Oceanic Expansion, 1400-1800: A collection of essays, ed. Francisco Bethencourt and Diogo Ramada Curto, New York, CUP, pp. 88-108.
• 2006. “Portuguese and Indian medical systems: commonality and superiority in the early modern period.” Revista de Cultura , Macau, vol. 20, pp.116-41.
• 2006. “Coastal communities and maritime history,” History in Focus.
• 2006. "Littoral Society: the concept and the problems," Journal of World History, 17, 4, pp. 353-73.
• 2005. “Social Work in the Portuguese Empire,” Campus Social: Revista Lusófona de Ciências Sociais, [Lisbon], 2, 108-13.
• 2005. “Recent Changes on India’s West Coast,” Indian Ocean Survey, I, 1, pp. 103-15.
• 2005. “The Portuguese and Violence in the Indian Ocean: some second thoughts,” Oriente [Lisbon], no. 12, pp.11-23.
• 2004. “Roundtable: Reviews of Michael Pearson, the Indian Ocean, with a Response by Michael Pearson,” International Journal of Maritime History, XVI, 1, pp. 1-42.
• 2003. “Brief Comments on Recent Work on the Indian Ocean,” Itinerario, 3, pp. 187-90.
• 2003. “Sympathetic ‘Farangi’”: An Interview with Michael N. Pearson,” Itinerario, 3, pp. 6-17.
• 2001. "Hindu Medical Practice in Sixteenth-Century Western India: Evidence from the Portuguese Records," Portuguese Studies, XVII, pp. 100-13. *
• 2001. “A Hazardous Embarkation: Writing a History of the Indian Ocean,” Indica Platinum Jubilee Volume, XXXVIII, pp. 145-52.
• 2000. “Consolidating the Faith: Muslim Travellers in the Indian Ocean World,” The UTS Review, VI, 2, pp. 6-13.
• 1998. "Early Relations between the Portuguese and Gujarat: A New Overview," Indica, XXXV, 2, pp. 81-95.
• 1996. "'Objects Ridiculous and August:' Early Modern European Perceptions of Asia," Journal of Modern History, LXVIII, pp. 382-97.
• 1995. "The Thin End of the Wedge: Medical Relativities as a Paradigm of Early Modern Indian-European Relations," Modern Asian Studies, XXIX, l, pp. 141-70. *
• 1993. "The Flows and Effects of Precious Metals in India and China: 1500-1750," Annales, II, 2, pp. 51-69.
• 1991. "Pilgrims, Travellers, Tourists: the Meanings of Journeys," Australian Cultural History, no. 10, pp. 125-34.
• 1990. "The Estado da India and the Hajj," Indica, XXVI, pp. 103-18.
• 1989. "Conversions in Southeast Asia: Evidence from the Portuguese Records," Portuguese Studies, vol. VI, pp. 53-70. *
• 1986-87. "The Mughals and the Hajj," Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia, XVII-XIX, pp. 164-79.
• 1988. "Brokers in Western Indian Port Cities: Their Role in Servicing Foreign Merchants," Modern Asian Studies, XXII, 3, pp. 455-72, and also published in G. Bouchon and P-Y. Manguin, eds., Asian Trade and Civilisation: Studies in Honour of C.R. Boxer, CUP, 1990. *
• 1987. "Maritime History: Theory and Empirical Testing," ASAA Review, XI, l, pp. 23-31.
• 1986. "The Hajj (Pilgrimage) from Mughal India: Some Preliminary Observations," Indica (Heras Institute Diamond Jubilee Number), XXIII, pp. 143-58.
• 1985. "Littoral Society: The Case for the Coast," The Great Circle, VII, l, pp. 1-8. *
• 1984. "Recreation in Mughal India," British Journal of Sports History, I, 3, pp. 335-50.
• 1984. "V.M. Godinho and 'Os Descobrimentos:' A Critical and Bibliographical Note," Indica, XXI, l, pp. 29-38.
• 1984. "Goa during the First Century of Portuguese Rule," Itinerario, VIII, l, pp. 36-57; also published as "The First Century of Portuguese Rule in Goa," in Vice-Almirante A. Teixeira da Mota: In Memoriam, Lisbon, 1987, pp. 251-66. *
• 1982. "Premodern Muslim Political Systems," Journal of the American Oriental Society, CII, l, pp. 47-58.
• 1976. "Shivaji and the Decline of the Mughal Empire," Journal of Asian Stud­ies, XXXV, 2, pp. 221-36.
• 1973-74. "The Goa Archives and Indian History," Quarterly Review of Historical Studies, XIII, 4, pp. 205-11.
• 1973. "Wealth and Power: Indian Groups in the Portuguese Indian Economy," South Asia, no. 3, pp. 36-44.
• 1973. "Indigenous Dominance in a Colonial Economy: The Goa Rendas, 1600-1670," Mare Luso-Indicum, II, Geneva, pp. 61-73.
• 1972. "Political Participation in Mughal India," Indian Economic and Social History Review, IX, 2, pp. 113-31.
• 1969. "The Spanish 'Impact' on the Philippines," Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, XII, 2, pp. 165-86.
• 1968. "Spain and Spanish Trade in Southeast Asia," Journal of Asian History, II, 2, pp. 109-29.*

Chapters in Books

• 2007. “Studying the Indian Ocean World: Problems and Opportunities,” in H.P. Ray and Edward Alpers, eds., Cross Currents and Community Networks: Encapsulating the History of the Indian Ocean World, New Delhi, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library and OUP, pp. 13-32.
• 2006. “Afterword,” in Edward Simpson and Kai Kresse, eds, Cosmopolitanism contested: anthropology and history in the western Indian Ocean, London, Hurst.
• 2006. “Creating a Littoral Community: Muslim reformers in the early modern Indian Ocean World,” in Hal Parker and Jerry Bentley, eds, From the Middle Ages to Modernity: Individual and Community in the Early Modern World, Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 155-65.
• 2006. “Markets and Merchant Communities in the Indian Ocean: Locating the Portuguese” in Portuguese Oceanic Expansion, 1400-1800: A collection of essays, ed. Francisco Bethencourt, New York, CUP, pp. 84-104.
• 2006. “The Colonial Port City of Goa in Historical Perspective,” in Diogo Ramada Curto ed., Colonial Cities in the Tropics: a Comparative History, Firenze, The Accademia toscana di scienze e lettere 'La Colombaria' and Leo S. Olschky Editore.
• 2002. "Portuguese India Twenty Five Years after Gama: An Important Document from 1523," in M. A. Nayeem, Anirudha Ray and K. S. Mathew, eds, Studies In the History of the Deccan: Medieval and Modern: Professor A.R. Kulkarni Felicitation Volume, New Delhi, Pragati Publishers, pp. 179-87.
• 2001. "Asia and World Precious Metal Flows in the Early Modern Period," in John McGuire, Patrick Bertola and Peter Reeves, eds, Evolution of the World Economy, Precious Metals and India, OUP, Delhi, pp. 21-57. *
• 2001. “The Portuguese in India and the Indian Ocean: An Overview of the Sixteenth Century,” in Pius Malekandathil and Jamal Mohammed, eds., The Portuguese, Indian Ocean and European Bridgeheads 1500-1800: Festschrift in Honour of Prof. K.S. Mathew, Tellicherry, Kerala, pp. 49-66.
• 2001. "The Portuguese State and Medicine in Sixteenth Century Goa," in K.S. Mathew, Teotonio R. de Souza and Pius Malekandathil, eds. The Portuguese and Socio-Cultural Changes In India, 1500-1800, Fundacao Oriente, pp. 401-19. *
• 2000. "Gateways to Africa: the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea," in Randall Pouwels and Nehemia Levtzion, eds, History of Islam in Africa, Ohio University Press, pp. 37-59. *
• 2000. "The East African Coast in 1498: a Synchronic Study,” in Anthony Disney and Emily Booth, eds. Vasco da Gama and the Linking of Europe and Asia, Delhi, OUP, pp. 116-30. *
• 1998. "Indians in East Africa: the Early Modern Period," in Rudrangshu Mukherjee and Lakshmi Subramanian, ed., Politics and Trade in the Indian Ocean World: Essays in Honour of Ashin Das Gupta, OUP, Delhi, pp. 227-49. *
• 1997. "World-Systems before Capitalism," in Mabel Lee and Michael Wilding, eds, History, Literature and Society: Essays in Honour of Soumyen Mukherjee, Sydney and New Delhi, pp. 163-78.
• 1996. "Introduction," Asia and Europe: Commerce, Colonialism and Cultures: Essays in Honour of Sinnappah Arasaratnam, in South Asia [Special Issue], vol. XIX, pp. 1-15.
• 1996. "Introduction," Spices in the Indian Ocean World, "An Expanding World, vol. 11" Variorum, pp. xv-xxxvii.
• 1996. "First Contacts between Indian and European Medical Systems: Goa in the Sixteenth Century," in David Arnold ed., Warm Climates and Western Medicine: the Emergence of Tropical Medicine, 1500-1900, Amsterdam, Editions Rodopi (The Wellcome Institute Series in the History of Medicine), pp. 20-41. *
• 1996. “Goa in the Early Nineteenth Century: Some British Accounts,” in A.R. Kulkarni, M.A. Nayeem and T.R. de Souza, eds., Medieval Deccan History. Commemoration Volume in Honour of P.M. Joshi, Bombay, pp. 229-36.
• 1992. "The Search for the Similar: Early Contacts between Portuguese and Indians," in Jens Christian V. Johansen, Erling Ladewig Petersen and Henrik Stevnsborg, eds., Clashes of Cultures: Essays in Honour of Niels Steensgaard, Odense University Press, pp. 144-59. *
• 1991. "Merchants and States," in James D. Tracy, ed., The Political Economy of Merchant Empires, CUP, New York, pp. 41-116.
• 1990. "Pious Passengers: Motivations for the Hajj from early modern India," in K.S. Mathew, ed., Studies in Maritime History, Pondicherry, pp. 112-26.
• 1990. "Goa-Based Seaborne Trade, 17th and 18th Centuries," in Teotonio R. de Souza (ed.), Goa Through the Ages, vol. II, An Economic History, New Delhi, pp. 146-75. *
• 1987. "India and the Indian Ocean in the Sixteenth Century," in India and the Indian Ocean, 1500-1800, Calcutta, Oxford Uni­versity Press, pp. 71-93, reprinted in Madhya Kaleen Bharat.
• 1987. "Introduction I: The Subject," India and the Indian Ocean, 1500-1800, Calcutta, Oxford Uni­versity Press, pp. 1-24.
• 1986. "Carnations, Captains and Communists: Burchett on Portugal," in Ben Kiernan (ed.), Burchett Reporting the Other Side of the World, 1939-1983, London, pp. 279-87.
• 1985. "Land, Noble and Ruler in Mughal India," in Sir Edmund Leach, S.N. Mukherjee and John O. Ward (eds), Feudalism: Comparative Studies, Sydney. Sydney Studies in Society and Culture, no. 2., pp. 175-96.
• 1979. "Introduction," The Age of Partnership: Europeans in Asia before Dominion, Honolulu, The University Press of Hawaii, pp. 1-14.
• 1979. "Corruption and Corsairs in Sixteenth-Century Western India: A Functional Analysis," in The Age of Partnership: Europeans in Asia before Dominion, Honolulu, The University Press of Hawaii, pp. 15-42.
• 1979. "Heads in the Sand," in Richard Cashman and M.M. McKernan (eds), Sport in History, Brisbane, pp. 272-92.
• 1977. "The People and Politics of Portuguese India during the Sixteenth and early Seventeenth Centuries," in Dauril Alden and Warren Dean (eds), Essays Concerning the Socio-Economic History of Brazil and Portuguese India, Miami, pp. 1-25.
• 1972. (with Diana Tonsich), "The Partition of India and Pakistan: The Emergence of Bangladesh," in T.E. Hachey (ed.), The Problem of Partition: Peril to World Peace, Chicago, pp. 132-73.

Published Conference Proceedings, Encyclopaedia Entries, etc.

Forthcoming:

• Articles on "Hormuz," "Indian Ocean," "Ibn Madjid," and "Sindbad the Sailor" in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History.

Published:

• 2006. Several contributions to A. Andrea ed., Encyclopedia of World History 2006 “The Role of Pilgrimage in pre 1800 Indian History,” in The Encyclopedia of the Indian Diaspora, ed Brij V. Lal, Singapore, Editions Didier Millet.
• 2005. Several articles in The History of World Trade since 1914: "Vasco da Gama," "Persian Gulf," "Indian Ocean," "Ethnic Groups: Gujarati.” McCusker, John J. History of World Trade since 1450. Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA.
• 1999. "Portuguese India and the Mughals," in Teotonio R. de Souza, ed., Vasco da Gama and India, International Conference, Lisbon, I, 223-36.
• 1995. Contributor to the International Dictionary of Historic Places, Fitzroy Dearborn, London.
• 1992. Contributor to The Guinness Book of Records, 1492: The World Five Hundred Years Ago, London.
• 1988. Articles on "Calicut," "Goa," "Portuguese in India," "Portuguese in Sri Lanka," and "Surat" in The Encyclopedia of Asian History, New York, Scribner's and the Asia Society, 4 vols, I, 218; I, 510-1; III, 273-4; III, 275; IV, 31-2.
• 1985. "The Indian Ocean and the Portuguese in the Sixteenth Century," Second International Seminar on Indo-Portuguese History,   Proceedings, Lisbon, pp. 102-17.
• 1984. "South Asian History," ASAA Review, VIII, l, pp. 3-5.
• 1979. "Looking Outward: Colonial Goa in the Sixteenth Century," in Dilip Basu (ed.), The Rise and Growth of the Colonial Port City in Asia, Santa Cruz, pp. 8-10.
• 1977. "European Relations with South Asian Muslims, 1500-1947," The Changeless and the Changing in Islamic-Arabic-Hispanic Cultures, Goulborn, pp. 87-103.
• 1969. "Cafilas and Cartazes: The Portuguese and Western Indian Trade in the Sixteenth Century," Proceedings of the 30th Indian History Congress, Patna, pp. 200-7. Reprinted in Satish Chandra, ed., Essays in Medieval Indian History, Delhi, Munshiram Manoharlal, 1987 [IHC Jubilee Publications, vol. II].

Book Reviews

• Over 100 book reviews over the years 1967-2006 in a wide range of scholarly journals.

Upcoming Events

• 
• IOWC Visiting Lecturer: Himanshu Prabha Ray
  28 November 2008, 5-7pm
  The Greeks in the Western Indian Ocean and the Coming of Islam

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• 
• International Conference on Debt & Slavery
  7-9th May, 2009
  Please note the timeline for submission of papers has changed.

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