About
Sebastian Prange (PhD, University of London) is an economic historian of the medieval Indian Ocean world, with a focus on South India. His research interests revolve around the history of Islam in monsoon Asia, the role of piracy and maritime violence, and the development of capitalism from a non-European perspective.
Teaching
Publications
BOOK:
Monsoon Islam: Trade and Faith on the Medieval Malabar Coast (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Awarded the AHA John F. Richards Prize in South Asian History as well as the AHA Pacific Coast Branch Book Award
Malayalam translation: മണ്സൂണ് ഇസ് ലാം, trans. Thomas Karthikapuram (Other Books, 2021)
ARTICLES / CHAPTERS:
with R. Mawani, “Unruly Oceans: Law, Violence, and Sovereignty at Sea”, Third World Approaches to International Law Review (Reflections series) 27 (2021)
“The Mosque in a Land of Temples: Reading Malabar’s Muslim Monuments”, in Malabar in the Indian Ocean: Cosmopolitanism in a Maritime Historical Region, eds. M. Kooria and M.N. Pearson (Oxford University Press, 2018)
“Asian Piracy”, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History (Oxford University Press, 2017)
“The Pagan King Replies: An Indian Perspective on the Portuguese Arrival in India”, Itinerario 41:1 (2017)
with D. Elliott, “Beyond Piracy: Maritime Violence and Colonial Encounters in Indian History”, in Beyond the Line: Cultural Narratives of the Southern Oceans, ed. M. Mann and I. Phaf-Rheinberger (Neofelis, 2014)
“The Contested Sea: Regimes of Maritime Violence in the Pre-Modern Indian Ocean”, Journal of Early Modern History 17:1 (2013)
“A Trade of No Dishonor: Piracy, Commerce, and Community in the Western Indian Ocean, Twelfth to Sixteenth Century” American Historical Review 116:5 (2011); awarded the Biennial Best Article Prize by the Forum on European Expansion and Global Interaction
“Measuring by the bushel: Reweighing the Indian Ocean Pepper Trade”, Historical Research 84:224 (2011); awarded the Pollard Prize by the Institute of Historical Research
“Outlaw Economics: Doing Business on the Fringes of the State. A Review Essay”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 53:2 (2011)
“Like Banners on the Sea: Muslim Trade Networks and Islamization in Malabar and maritime Southeast Asia”, in Islamic Connections: Muslim Societies in South and Southeast Asia, eds. M. Feener and T. Sevea (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009)
“Scholars and the Sea: A Historiography of the Indian Ocean”, History Compass 6 (2008); awarded the History Compass Graduate Essay Prize, World History category
“Trust in God – but tie your camel first. The economic organization of the trans-Saharan slave trade between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries”, Journal of Global History 1:2 (2006)