Maritime Heritage by Amelia Khatri

Maritime Heritage unveils the often-overlooked maritime history of Africa, asserting its central role in global maritime heritage rather than a peripheral one.
The book challenges Eurocentric narratives by exploring ancient African shipbuilding traditions and extensive pre-colonial trade networks.
It highlights the ingenuity of African societies in crafting vessels suited to various environments and reveals how these networks facilitated the exchange of goods, ideas, and cultural practices, reshaping our understanding of early technological innovation.
A key insight is the significant contribution of African sailors in global exploration, often overshadowed in mainstream historical accounts.

The book is structured into three major sections, beginning with African Shipbuilding Traditions, then Maritime Trade Networks, and finally African Sailors in Global Exploration.
It uses a range of sources, including archaeological findings and oral histories, to give voice to African experiences.

By adopting an Afrocentric perspective, Maritime Heritage challenges prevailing biases and promotes a more inclusive understanding of world history, emphasizing the need to critically examine power dynamics that have shaped historical narratives and offering a more nuanced and accurate account of the past.