Print and Print Readers in the Early Modern Indian Ocean World

Since Elizabeth Eisenstein, it has become common to speak of a “printing revolution” in early modern Europe. A transformative role has also been assigned to print in the context of the colonial Americas – and not only among Europeans.  But what of its role and reach in the Indian Ocean world, that other major scene of early European expansion, stretching from the Cape of Good Hope to what is now Indonesia? 

Without exception, historians have described print culture in the region as something “by Europeans, for Europeans,” an alien phenomenon lacking wider uptake or import until after 1800. This paper challenges this consensus. Drawing on untapped sources, including subscription lists and probate records, it shows that large non-European audiences for printed matter emerged in the region from a much earlier date. It finds that, by the eighteenth century, Indians, Lankans, Javanese, Malays, and others were sponsoring, buying, and reading books on a massive scale.  Various social groups bought printed matter of various genres in various places for various reasons. This discovery, in turn, has broader implications. It exposes new influences on, and dimensions of, regional political and intellectual movements. Indeed, if works of European art, science, and even radical politics were already penetrating deep into Asian hinterlands, then the influences on – and even origins of – other revolutions in the Indian Ocean world must be reexamined.

SPEAKER

Joshua Ehrlich (University of Macau)