This article explores the past, present, and possible future directions of the ‘‘new thalassology’’ [from the ancient Greek thalassa, ‘‘sea’’] and Indian Ocean studies from its humble beginnings in the 1950s and 1960s, and the cross-fertilization between the ‘Annales’ school and world-systems analysis in the 1980s, to its – admittedly incomplete – institutionalization in the early twenty-first century. In addition, it defines the numerous, often flexible and permeable, spatial and temporal boundaries or ‘frontiers’ of the Indian Ocean world(s). A final section surveys some of the potentialities and pitfalls of Indian Ocean studies and the new thalassology, with the strengths outweighing the weaknesses. The new thalassology undoubtedly presents some daunting challenges. It is to be hoped, however, that charting some of the ‘hundred frontiers’ of the globalized, inter-regional Indian Ocean seascape provides some sense of direction for this exciting field of scholarship and helps shape the future contours of maritime-based studies

The founding of a coastal trading factory at Kayalpatnam in south-eastern India in 1645 initiated a period of nearly a century of cross-cultural contacts between representatives of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Nayaka state of Madurai. Traditionally this area has received little attention in both Dutch and Indian colonial historiography. While Company historians have tended to focus on either Coromandel or Ceylon, the main centres of VOC activity in the region, their Indian counterparts have concentrated on the epic struggle of the Mughals with the Deccan sultanates, and subsequently the Marathas, during this time period. In the true spirit of the great chartered companies, one historian has held a virtual monopoly in the field for more than two decades, from the late fifties to the early eighties. Only recently have other (ethno)historians, anthropologists, indologists, and sociologists turned their attention to the area south of the Kollidam (Coleroon) River and east of the Western Ghats.