Shallow Blue Empire

Fascinating…[Fernando’s] account gives luster to a less-trodden route in commercial and colonial history. – Ava Rahman * Wall Street Journal *
Shallow Blue Empire is a major contribution to the modern maritime history of Asia, but its importance also extends equally to scholars of empire, labor, science, race, and human geography…By returning the pearl from the showroom to the milieu of the oyster, Fernando resituates a familiar luxury object into a rich and complex world of knowledge, while demonstrating that the shallows should be understood not as the margin of imperial history but as a critical layer where the possibilities and limits of empire can be tested intensely. – Somak Mukherjee * H-Asia *
An ambitious and deeply original contribution to Indian Ocean history that succeeds in reframing the natural pearl industry through the interconnected histories of labour, environment, science, law, and empire. – Bhadrajee Hewage * South Asian History and Culture *
Remarkable in its breadth of coverage, sensitivity to standpoint and situatedness, and creative and voracious use of source material pertaining both to those who attempted to govern the seas from the shores and to the human and nonhuman actors who actually inhabited them. The book will appeal not just to those who are interested in the history of the pearl as a commodity but also to those with more general interests in global maritime history. – Manimporok Dotulong * H-Oceans *
A vivid picture of environmental knowledge among those who lived, worked, and governed the Indian Ocean’s pearl reefs. Through colorful and compelling vignettes, Tamara Fernando teaches readers about the books that sailors and captains read, the embodied knowledge of pearl divers, and the many British efforts to understand how and why pearl oysters lived and died. With this deep blue dive, Fernando shows us what an environmental history of the Indian Ocean should look like. – Fahad Bishara, author of Monsoon Voyagers: An Indian Ocean History
Through meticulous research across multiple languages and rarely consulted sources, Tamara Fernando reveals how pearl divers navigated imperial power from the ocean surface to the seabed. The result is an innovative exploration of labor, environmental history, and the material life of coral reefs. Ambitious and sweeping, Shallow Blue Empire showcases Fernando’s exceptional skills as a historian of the Indian Ocean. – Nira Wickramasinghe, author of Slave in a Palanquin: Colonial Servitude and Resistance in Sri Lanka
Shallow Blue Empire is an exemplary contribution to the histories of science, law, and empire because it moves below the waves and across regions rarely studied together. In the reefs and shallows, Tamara Fernando finds not only a diverse range of sources and forms of knowledge but also a rich assembly of sea life. Questioning key faultlines and orthodoxies in Indian Ocean histories, her account is a brilliant intervention that deserves wide reading. – Sujit Sivasundaram, author of Waves Across the South: A New History of Revolution and Empire
An interdisciplinary tour de force, equal parts poetry and erudition. Shallow Blue Empire is not just a groundbreaking contribution to the environmental history of the Indian Ocean world, but also required reading for anyone interested in what happens along ocean shores, in the shallows, and on the waves. Moving like a dancer across the stage, this work is a precise performance of grace and power. – Molly A. Warsh, author of American Baroque: Pearls and the Nature of Empire, 1492-1700
Shallow Blue Empire makes a powerful contribution to the environmental history of imperialism in the Indian Ocean. Following her human subjects in their encounters with oysters, Fernando reveals the contested, compromised nature of colonial authority where the ocean met the land. As she shows, oysters and their pearls make demands not only on those who seek to exploit their watery beds, but also on scholars who must find innovative ways to narrate their histories. – Jonathan Saha, author of Colonizing Animals: Interspecies Empire in Myanmar

Tamara Surani Fernando is Assistant Professor of History at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

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