Pier M. Larson is Professor of African History at The Johns Hopkins University, USA. A cultural and intellectual historian with interests in social history, he specializes in early modern Madagascar, the Indian Ocean, slavery, religion, literacy, and the global African diasporas. He is the author of History and Memory in the Age of Enslavement: Becoming Merina in Highland Madagascar, 1770–1822 (2000).

'Larson summarizes the approaches of current scholarship to the African diaspora in the Indian Ocean. He brings to the fore the complexities of cross-cultural interactions in asymmetric power relationships in the western Indian Ocean during the early modern period.' The American Historical Review

• 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.

Pier M. Larson is Professor of African History at The Johns Hopkins University, USA. A cultural and intellectual historian with interests in social history, he specializes in early modern Madagascar, the Indian Ocean, slavery, religion, literacy, and the global African diasporas. He is the author of History and Memory in the Age of Enslavement: Becoming Merina in Highland Madagascar, 1770–1822 (2000).

'Larson summarizes the approaches of current scholarship to the African diaspora in the Indian Ocean. He brings to the fore the complexities of cross-cultural interactions in asymmetric power relationships in the western Indian Ocean during the early modern period.' The American Historical Review

• 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.

Pier M. Larson is Professor of African History at The Johns Hopkins University, USA. A cultural and intellectual historian with interests in social history, he specializes in early modern Madagascar, the Indian Ocean, slavery, religion, literacy, and the global African diasporas. He is the author of History and Memory in the Age of Enslavement: Becoming Merina in Highland Madagascar, 1770–1822 (2000).

'Larson summarizes the approaches of current scholarship to the African diaspora in the Indian Ocean. He brings to the fore the complexities of cross-cultural interactions in asymmetric power relationships in the western Indian Ocean during the early modern period.' The American Historical Review

• 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.