Scholar Voices: Spodek

Indian Ocean: Cradle of Globalization
Scholar Voices
Howard Spodek

Howard Spodek, considering "The Indian Ocean in World History," provides an overall perspective of the Indian Ocean in world history. Spodek's "specialty" is world history; here, specialty is in quotation marks because it generally denotes an interest in a specific area of inquiry. How can one write about world history—how can anyone know everything—without engaging in what Spodek called "high level journalism"? Nonetheless, beginning with Fernand Braudel's histories and development of the approach of the "longue duree," world history has become a significant area of study. As the author of a popular world history text book and pioneer in teaching world history, Spodek is familiar with the challenges involved.

After tracing some of the important works addressing the history of the Indian Ocean, Spodek listed some of the dominant issues and trends in Indian Ocean studies. They include:

Trade diasporas-economics and social life
Trade circuits-geography
Europeans' coming to dominance
Religious civilizations and their geography
Appropriate units of study (e.g., migrant workers)

Spodek raises other questions essential to the study of world history, such as the following:

What other relationships can we consider besides those centering on the state? (e.g., what about merchant relationships?)
How can we refigure time?
How can we incorporate multiple perspectives?

Finally, Spodek led a discussion of a book that he and the NEH Fellows had read—Amitav Ghosh's In an Antique Land, and offered a helpful pedagogical approach to teaching history. Spodek asks his students to consider four levels of value: those of

the people studied
the historian whose work is under discussion
the teacher conducting the class
the student

Reading List:

A. Braudel, Fernand. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II [1556-1598]. Geographical Time, Social Time, and Individual Time. In French, 1949; English, 1972.

B. Chaudhuri, K.N. Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge U. Press, 1985).

C. Chaudhuri, K.N. Asia before Europe. Economy and Civilization of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge U. Press, 1990). Investigation, in part, into the structure of time.

D. Das Gupta, Ashin and M.N. Pearson. India and the Indian Ocean, 1500-1800 (Calcutta: OUP, 1987)

E. Toussaint, August. History of the Indian Ocean (London: 1966)

F. Abu-Lughod, Janet. Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350 (OUP, 1989), esp. maps, pp. 34, 252.

G. Wills, John E., jr. "Maritime Asia, 1500-1800: the Interactive Emergence of European Domination," American Historical Review XCIII No. 1 (Feb., 1993), 83-105.

H. McPherson, Kenneth. The Indian Ocean (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).

I. Barendse, R.J. The Arabian Seas: The Indian Ocean World of the Seventeenth Century (Armonk: NY, 2002). From pre-European trade systems to European companies, with arms, and central control.

J. Tracy, James D., ed. The Political Economy of Merchant Empires (Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres, 1991)

K. Tracy, James D. ed. The Rise of Merchant Empires (Cambridge U. Press, 1990).

L. Goitein, Shelomo Dov. A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Genizah, 6 vols. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967-83).

M. Hodgson, Marshall. The Venture of Islam, 3 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974) and Rethinking World History: Essays on Europe, Islam, and World History, ed. Edmund Burke III (Cambridge U. Press, 1993).

N. Wink, Andre. Al-Hind:The Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Vol. 1: Early Medieval India and the Expanions of Islam 7th-11th Centuries; Vol. 2: The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest, 11th-13th Centuries (Leiden, The Netherlands, 1990 and 1997).

O. Papanek, Hanna, "Purdah: Separate Worlds and Symbolic Shelter," Comparative Studies in Society and History XV, No. 3 (June, 1973), 289-325.

P. Hammond Atlas of World History (London: Times Books, Harper Collins, 1999).

Howard Spodek

Professor of History and Geography/Urban Studies

Temple University

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