An ocean of print: the communications revolution in late-colonial South and Southeast Asia

Abstract

This paper examines the nineteenth century revolution in maritime communications as it affected British territories in the Indian Ocean. It argues that the massive increase in the number of letters, books, postcards, pamphlets and periodicals circulated across the region during the period 1870-1920 constituted an information explosion. In particular, the heighted interconnection afforded new, multilingual Asian literati led to the creation of transnational publics which transformed the way some people thought about knowledge, community, modernity and the future of the British Empire. Can we argue that this era witnessed the birth of a bourgeois colonial public sphere and an Asian enlightenment?