Ocean of Letters is a remarkable history of imperialism,
來源:香港大書城megBookStore,http://www.megbook.com.hk language, and creolization in the largest African diaspora of the
Indian Ocean in the early modern period. Ranging from Madagascar to
the Mascarenes, the Comores, and South Africa, Pier M. Larson sheds
new light on the roles of slavery, emancipation, oceanic travel,
Christian missions, and colonial linguistics in the making of
Malagasy-language literacy in the islands of the western Indian
Ocean. He shows how enslaved and free Malagasy together with
certain European colonists and missionaries promoted the Malagasy
language, literacy projects and letter writing in the multilingual
colonial societies of the region between the seventeenth and
mid-nineteenth centuries. Addressing current debates in the history
of Africa and the African diaspora, slavery, abolition,
creolization and the making of modern African literatures, the book
crosses thematic as well as geo-imperial boundaries and brings
fresh perspectives to Indian Ocean history.
目錄:
1. Departures
2. Conversation and the catechism
3. The work of the word
4. The colonial study
5. The multilingual street
6. Renaissance: reading and affiliation
7. Ocean of letters
8. Pathways of language and Créolité.