The Comoro Islands

Islands of stark contrasts and complex syncretisms, the comoros hold a major key to the history of the western Indian Ocean area. An invaluable resource for anyone interested in the history, economics, cultures, languages, geography, geology, or politics of the western Indian Ocean.

Many people today have never heard of the Comoros, but these islands were once part of a prosperous regional trading economy that stretched halfway around the world. A key node in the trading networks of the Indian Ocean, the Comoros prospered by exchanging slaves and commodities with Arab and Indian merchants. By the sixteenth century, the archipelago served as an important supply point on the route from Europe to Asia. The twentieth century brought the establishment of French colonial rule and a plantation economy. Since declaring its independence in 1975, the Comoros has been blighted by more than twenty coups, a radical revolutionary government and a mercenary regime. Today, the island nation suffers chronic mismanagement and relies on remittances from a diaspora community in France. Nonetheless, the Comoros is largely peaceful and culturally vibrant-- connected to the outside world in the internet age, but, at the same time, still slightly apart. Iain Walker traces the history and unique culture of these enigmatic islands, from their first settlement by Africans, Arabs and Austronesians, through their heyday within the greater Swahili world, to their decline as a forgotten outpost of the French colonial empire.

Tor Sellström profiles the independent island states and the European dependencies in the African part of the Indian Ocean, their contemporary social, political and economic challenges, the wider international context and their relations with, in particular, Africa and the African Union.

With their unique flora and fauna, Madagascar and the surrounding islands of the Indian Ocean are some of the most interesting vacation destinations for nature lovers, herpetologists and amateur reptile and amphibian keepers. This work describes the climate and vegetation of the area, as well as many of the resident reptiles and amphibians, and contains information on the husbandry of most species. There are 240 descriptions with colour photos of each to aid in identification of these animals.