Opening Lecture

27 April 2023, Florence:

Speaker: Tirthankar Roy (London School of Economics)

Time and place: 27 April 2023, 17.00 CEST, Hybrid (Villa Salviati, Sala del Consiglio, and via Zoom)

The talk confronts an anomaly in the history of European colonialism in Asia and Africa, namely that prior to the eighteenth century, European power was negligible compared to interior states. Typically, historians of colonialism stress either the pursuit of political opportunism or the combatting of political threats to explain how European seaborne power became terrestrial. Drawing on examples from South and Southeast Asia, this talk instead asks whether the control of the sea sustained campaigns inland. Evidence suggests three locational advantages were prerequisites: a stable supply of food and water, relatively easy transportation access into the interior, and agglomeration prospects.