South Africa's future is increasingly tied up with that of India. While trade and investment between the two countries is intensifying, they share long-standing historical ties and have much in common: apart from cricket, colonialism and Gandhi, both countries are important players in the global South. As India emerges as a major economic power, the need to understand these links becomes ever more pressing. Can the two countries enter balanced forms of exchange? What forms of transnational political community between these two regions have yet to be researched and understood? South Africa and India: Shaping the Global South takes on this task. The first section traces the range of historical connection between the two countries. The second section explores unconventional comparisons that offer rich ground on which to build original areas of study. The title is innovative in a number of respects: it offers new approaches for researching transnational histories; displays innovative methods for undertaking comparative research in the global South; explains the significance of the Indian Ocean as a strategic and analytical arena; and develops interesting and uncommon areas of research such as lascars (black sailors), print culture, steamships, civic virtue, political citizenship and labour migrancy. This title looks to a post-American world in which the global South will become ever more important. Within this context, the Indian Ocean arena itself and South Africa and India in particular move to the fore. The book’s main contribution lies in the approaches and methods offered by its wide range of contributors for thinking about this set of circumstances.