This is a book by arguably one of the best historians of migration of today. It definitely lives up to the fact that it won the American Historical Association’s John F. Richards Prize in South Asian History. The work is of a high scholarly nature, yet it makes you want to read it like a novel reminding one of the narrative genius of the likes of Amitav Ghosh. It is a solid history of migrations around the Bay of Bengal but can be of interest to scholars of environment, geographers and cartographers, not to say to those who are interested in the region itself. Amrith’s tale of the Bay of Bengal begins from the sixth century to the present but is intertwined wonderfully with stories of struggle and the changing landscape around the bay. It is a book with free flowing chapters and no subheads so the reader of serious fiction may be lured by the enchanting stories as well. There are arresting photographs by the author that give you a sense of the history and geography of the time.
The book is a work on art based on rich archival analysis from different libraries and special collections in London, Singapore, Kuala Lampur Yangon and in India, and oral histories and narratives of diasporic communities and people living all over the world but being connected in some way to the Bay of Bengal.