Waves Across the South

A New History of Revolution and Empire

By: Sujit Sivasundaram

Narrated by: Raj Ghatak

WINNER OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY BOOK PRIZE FOR GLOBAL CULTURAL UNDERSTANDINGSHORTLISTED FOR THE PEN-HESSEL TILTMAN PRIZE 2021LONGLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2021

‘Helps re-centre how we look at the world’ PETER FRANKOPAN

‘Global history at its finest’ SUNIL AMRITH

‘A master class’ OLIVETTE OTELE

'Fascinating' FINANCIAL TIMES

Starting from the ocean and from the forgotten histories of ocean-facing communities, this is a new history of the making of our world.

After revolutions in America and France, a wave of tumult coursed the globe from 1790 to 1850. It was a moment of unprecedented change and violence especially for indigenous peoples. By 1850 vibrant public debate between colonised communities had exploded in port cities. Yet in the midst of all of this, Britain struck out by sea and established its supremacy over the Indian and Pacific Oceans, overtaking the French and Dutch as well as other rivals.

Cambridge historian Sujit Sivasundaram brings together his work in far-flung archives across the world and the best new academic research in this remarkably creative book. Too often, history is told from the northern hemisphere, with modernity, knowledge, selfhood and politics moving from Europe to influence the rest of the world. This book traces the origins of our times from the perspective of indigenous and non-European people in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

This is a compulsive story full of cultural depth and range, a world history that speaks to urgent concerns today. The book weaves a bracingly fresh account of the origins of the British empire.

©2020 Sujit Sivasundaram (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

"Helps re-centre how we look at the world and opens up new perspectives on how we can look at regions, peoples and places that have been left to one side of traditional histories for far too long." (Peter Frankopan)

"A magisterial intervention in world history, subverting and inverting our established, Atlantic conceptions of the age of revolutions by taking account of the myriad histories of the Indian and Pacific Oceans and their 'sea of islands'.... This deeply researched and richly illustrated study not only demonstrates that 'we are all islanders', but also all heirs of empires forged in the oceanic South." (Margot Finn, president of the Royal Historical Society)

"This is a breathtaking book. Sujit Sivasundaram takes the familiar story of the 'age of revolutions' and turns it upside down, putting the voices, the hopes and the struggles of the seafaring peoples of the Indian and Pacific oceans at the heart of his account of how the modern world was forged.... Global history at its finest: eloquent, surprising, and deeply moving." (Sunil Amrith, author of Unruly Waters)