Intertidal History in Island Southeast Asia shows the vital part maritime Southeast Asians played in struggles against domination of the seventeenth-century spice trade by local and European rivals. Looking beyond the narrative of competing mercantile empires, it draws on European and Southeast Asian sources to illustrate Sama sea people's alliances and intermarriage with the sultanate of Makassar and the Bugis realm of Boné. Contrasting with later portrayals of the Sama as stateless pirates and sea gypsies, this history of shifting political and interethnic ties among the people of Sulawesi's littorals and its land-based realms, along with their shared interests on distant coasts, exemplifies how regional maritime dynamics interacted with social and political worlds above the high-water mark.
"[Gaynor] provides a useful reminder that outsiders were not necessarily the leading figures in the maritime life of this region... The product of extensive research and thought, this book is valuable for scholars of Southeast Asia and its rich maritime life. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, specialists."
Choice
"Gaynor has provided an insightful consideration of the dynamics of power, trade, and social relations that points historians to new understandings of societies and ecosystems that usually fall beyond the shore of the academic gaze.... Gaynor weaves a complex depiction of histories and peoples that enlightens the reader not only on this complex ecological land- and seascape, but also on social dyn
