'Early Modern': Historiographical Conventions and Problems
JIOWSJournal of Indian Ocean World Studies Africa, the Indian Ocean World, and the ‘Early Modern’: Historiographical Conventions and Problems Gwyn Campbell To cite this article: Campbell, Gwyn. “Africa, the Indian Ocean World, and the ‘Early Modern’: Historiographical Conventions and Problems.” Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies, 1 (2017), pp. 24-37. More information about the Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies can be found at: jiows.mcgill.ca © Gwyn Campbell. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License CC BY NC SA, which permits users to share, use, and remix the material provide they give proper attribution, the use is non-commercial, and any remixes/transformations of the work are shared under the same license as the original. Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies, 1 (2017), pp. 24-37. © Gwyn Campbell, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 | 24 Africa, the Indian Ocean World, and the “Early Modern”: Historiographical Conventions and Problems* Gwyn Campbell McGill University, Montreal Abstract European-inspired scholarship underscores conventional academic consen- sus that African commercial entrepeneurship disappeared with the European voyages of discovery, and subsequent implantation of the Potuguese, Dutch, English, and French commercial empires. Thus the people of eastern Africa are portrayed largely as technologically backward and isolated from the main currents of global history from about 1500 until the onset of modern Euro- pean colonialism from the close of the nineteenth century. This article argues that the conventional view needs to be challenged, and that Eastern African history in the period 1500-1800 needs to be revised in the context of an Indian Ocean world economy.
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