Download or read book Commerce with the Universe written by Gaurav Desai and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-24 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reading the life narratives and literary texts of South Asians writing in East Africa, Gaurav Desai builds a new history of Africa’s encounter with slavery, colonialism, migration, nationalism, development, and globalization. Rather than approach literature and culture from a nation-centered perspective, Desai connects the medieval trade routes of the Islamicate empire, the early independence movements galvanized in part by Gandhi’s southern African experiences, the invention of new ethnic nationalisms, and the rise of plural, multiethnic nations to the fertile exchange taking place across the Indian Ocean.