Comments on: The maritime rhythms of the Indian Ocean monsoon

By: A little more clarity

A little more clarity — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 23:25:24 +0000

This article is informative yet it fails to take note of the fact that “autumn” and “spring” are relative terms, based on where one is located in the world. They are going to be different to southern India: to southern Africa: to England. So this article would be much clearer and more precise if when discussing the monsoons it used month names and not seasons.

By: Birgitte Crawfurd (@BirgitteCrawfur)

Birgitte Crawfurd (@BirgitteCrawfur) — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 17:14:02 +0000

I would also like to draw your attention to the following:
http://rethinking.asia/forum-3-1: The Indian Ocean World – Belonging across the Bay of Bengal:
To overcome spatial limitations established by nations and empires, past and present, the Asian Spatialities Forum is concerned with flows, interactions, and community agency across seas and landmasses of Central, South, and Southeast Asia. The forum draws from a series of events cosponsored by IIAS and the University of Amsterdam and held in a number of Asian countries under the Asian Borderlands Research Platform. The series has contributed to a reconfiguration of theoretical and methodological approaches to geographical regions in general. It encourages exchanges among local and international scholars possessing different disciplinary and regional expertise, with a focus on three distinct sub-projects.
The first sub-project in the Spatialities Studies Forum will focus on contested notions of belonging across the Bay of Bengal. For historical reasons linked to former colonial empires and continued relations between former colonies, interest in the Indian Ocean is more visible in the fields of teaching and research in institutions in Europe and Asia than in North America. But can the new oceanic turn offer a novel point of departure for critiquing the creation of bounded territorial forms and political communities? The subproject will consist of two workshops whose larger aim is to reflect critically on recent efforts to foreground ocean-centered historical geographies of South and South East Asian littoral zones.[1]The first workshop “Belonging Across the Bay of Bengal: Migrations, Networks, Circulations” will empirically test such differentials, while the second, “The Bay of Bengal and Area Studies: Space, Scale and Location”, will outline an agenda for future research along these lines and fashion an innovative teaching curriculum. In addition to invited participants, the second workshop will include graduate students and early career professors working on connections across the Bay of Bengal, – Nira Wickramasinghe and Michael Laffan
[1] The oceanic turn in history – or the “New Thalassology” as it is sometimes termed – has been propelled by an effort to transcend the territorial frameworks of areas, empires and states. Such thalassological elaborations have yet to reflect on the multiplicities of scale and space in response to specific historical problems.

By: Birgitte Crawfurd (@BirgitteCrawfur)

Birgitte Crawfurd (@BirgitteCrawfur) — Sun, 19 Oct 2014 19:36:10 +0000

http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/11.1/anderson.html (retrieved Jul 9 2014):: Thomas Anderson, ‘Teaching the Indian Ocean as World History’ .
http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/8.1/maunu.html (retrieved Jul 9 2014): Review by John Maunu and Bryan Scheiber of “The Indian Ocean in World History,” A Web Resource developed by Susan Douglass, funded by the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, Revised and Updated, 2010.

By: Julian

Julian — Mon, 06 Oct 2014 10:12:12 +0000

I think there is a lot more interesting work to be done on 19th century records. One of the vessels I have researched, called the Flower of Ugie, departed from India several times in the 1840s during the summer and had to sail against the SW monsoon to get around the Cape of Good Hope. But those voyages were always a trade off I think as having a favourable season in the Indian Ocean probably meant getting to the North Atlantic in the late autumn. Very difficult to get all the weather seasons right on such voyages without a long stop-over somewhere, which of course did not sit well with the need to deliver goods as fast as possible.

By: Philip Browne

Philip Browne — Mon, 06 Oct 2014 10:04:52 +0000

Generally, East Indiamen followed the cycle of the monsoons, though not always, it appears. I have researched the seven voyages of Richard Peirce. On his four trips to China, his ship always departed for home in January. However, the timings of his voyages from the Cape of Good Hope to Madras vary considerably. Over six trips, he arrived in Madras in June (twice) in July (once) in October (twice) and in January (once).
For a vivid description of a storm in the Indian Ocean, I think you can’t beat Stephen Taylor’s “Storm and Conquest”.

By: Julian

Julian — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 20:18:57 +0000

All of Tim Severin’s work is great. Really exciting stuff to read and learn about and a great example of what can be achieved to understand some of the past through experimentation. The Brendan Voyage is my personal favourite.

By: Wade Tarzia

Wade Tarzia — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 12:38:23 +0000

Also worth reading, The Boats and Boatmen of Pakistan, where the effects of the monsoon and the seasonal flooding of the rivers are described for a society of river-sailors using rowed, poled, and sailed wooden vessels (fieldwork by the author done in the 1950s). A fine book, and often beautifully written.

By: Edwin

Edwin — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 12:26:07 +0000

Worth reading Tim Severin’s book The Sinbad Voyage both for the experience of sailing with the Monsoon and the description of the boat-building technology. Going for 1p secondhand on Amazon at the moment.