Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This Element discusses a medieval African urban society as a product of interactions among African communities who inhabited the region between 100 BCE and 500 CE. It deviates from standard approaches that credit urbanism and state in Africa to non-African agents. East Africa, then and now, was part of the broader world of the Indian Ocean. Globalism coincided with the political and economic transformations that occurred during the Tang-Sung-Yuan-Ming and Islamic Dynastic times, 600-1500 CE. Positioned as the gateway into and out of eastern Africa, the Swahili coast became a site through which people, inventions, and innovations bi-directionally migrated, were adopted, and evolved. Swahili peoples' agency and unique characteristics cannot be seen only through Islam's prism. Instead, their unique character is a consequence of social and economic interactions of actors along the coast, inland, and beyond the Indian Ocean.

Swahili-speaking peoples --- Cities and towns, Medieval --- Social life and customs. --- Indian Coast (Africa) --- Africa --- Civilization. --- Foreign relations. --- History

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

The history of Africa's historical relationship with the rest of the Indian Ocean world is one of a vibrant exchange that included commodities, people, flora and fauna, ideas, technologies and disease. This connection with the rest of the Indian Ocean world, a macro-region running from Eastern Africa, through the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia to East Asia, was also one heavily influenced by environmental factors. In presenting this rich and varied history, Gwyn Campbell argues that human-environment interaction, more than great men, state formation, or imperial expansion, was the central dynamic in the history of the Indian Ocean world (IOW). Environmental factors, notably the monsoon system of winds and currents, helped lay the basis for the emergence of a sophisticated and durable IOW 'global economy' around 1,500 years before the so-called European 'Voyages of Discovery'. Through his focus on human-environment interaction as the dynamic factor underpinning historical developments, Campbell radically challenges Eurocentric paradigms, and lays the foundations for a new interpretation of IOW history.

Human beings --- Human ecology --- Trade routes --- Commercial routes --- Foreign trade routes --- Ocean routes --- Routes of trade --- Sea lines of communication --- Sea routes --- Commerce --- Ecology --- Environment, Human --- Human environment --- Ecological engineering --- Human geography --- Nature --- Homo sapiens --- Human race --- Humanity (Human beings) --- Humankind --- Humans --- Man --- Mankind --- People --- Hominids --- Persons --- Effect of environment on --- History. --- Effect of climate on --- Social aspects --- Effect of human beings on --- Indian Coast (Africa) --- Indian Ocean Region --- Indian Ocean Rim countries --- Foreign economic relations --- Economic conditions --- International economic relations. --- Trade routes. --- Effect of climate on.