Part I. The historiography of the Persian Gulf -- Rethinking the history of port cities in the gulf / Nelida Fuccaro -- Narrative and the historian's craft in the Arabic historiography of the gulf / Fahad Ahmad Bishara -- The historiography of the Persian Gulf: a survey of the 19th and 20th century Persian sources / Gholam Reza Vatandoust -- Narrating the gulf: literary evidence for history / Muhsin al-Musawi -- Part II. Port cities and Littoral society -- The rise and fall of port cities in the Persian Gulf / Lawrence G. Potter -- Muscat as a port city / J.E. Peterson -- Bushehr: southern gateway to iran / Willem Floor -- Inside a gulf port: the dynamics of urban life in pre-oil Kuwait / Farah Al-Nakib -- Part III. Peoples in the gulf -- Indian communities in the Persian Gulf, c. 1500-1947 / James Onley -- The Baluch as an ethnic group in the Persian Gulf region / Carina Jahani -- "Purity and confusion": the Hawala between Persians and Arabs in the contemporary gulf / Ahmed al-Dailami -- The African presence in eastern Arabia / Matthew S. Hopper -- Identity transformations of African communities in Iran / Behnaz A. Mirzai.