In this article I examine two of Michael Pearson’s most important contributions to our understanding of Indian Ocean history: the concept of the littoral, which he first articulated in his seminal article on “Littoral society: the case for the coast” in The Great Circle 7, no. 1 (1985): 1-8, and his comment in The Indian Ocean (London and New York: Routledge, 2003, p. 9) that “I want it to have a whiff of ozone.” Accordingly, I review Pearson’s publications to see how he has written about these two notions and how they have influenced historical scholarship about the Indian Ocean.
The Ocean Gasins and Margins: volume 6, The Indian Ocean A. E. M. Nairn and F. G. Stehli (eds), Plenum Press, New York, 1982 776 pp., $85.00 plus 20% outside USA