Universalizing the Indian Ocean

In 1966 Auguste Toussaint, the Mauritian Archivist, Wrote One of the First Histories of the Indian Ocean, a Topic he Described as “neglected” (1). Four decades on, circumstances have shifted, and the Indian Ocean now compels our attention. Audacious Somali pirates astound international media audiences. The new economic superpowers, India and China, exert palpable global influence. Their internecine competition plays itself out in the Indian Ocean, where the two Asian powers squabble for control of shipping lanes and oil supplies and for dominance of African markets and minerals (Vines and Oruitemeka; Broadman). Al-Qaeda continues to operate around the Indian Ocean littoral: its targets have included United States interests in Tanzania, Kenya, Comoros, Indonesia, and Yemen. United States imperialism itself persists in the Indian Ocean world, waning in Iraq but entrenched in Diego Garcia, the United States-occupied atoll from which bombing raids on Afghanistan and Iraq were launched.