The Indian Ocean in the Making of Early Modern India

Description

This volume looks into the ways Indian Ocean routes shaped the culture and contours of early modern India. IT shows how these and other historical processes saw India rebuilt and reshaped during late medieval times after a long age of relative ‘stagnation’, ‘isolation’ and ‘backwardness’. The various papers deal with such themes including interconnectedness between Africa and India, trade and urbanity in Golconda, the changing meanings of urbanization in Bengal, commercial and cultural contact between Aceh and India, changing techniques of warfare, representation of early modern rulers of India in contemporary European paintings, the impact of the Indian Ocean on the foreign policies of the Mughals, the meanings of piracy, labour process in the textile sector, Indo-Ottoman trade, Maratha-French relations, Bible translations and religious polemics, weapon making and the uses of elephants. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of early modern Indian history in general and those working on aspects of connected histories in particular. Cover Half Title Title Copyright Contents Foreword Preface Introduction 1. Africa and Africans in the Making of Early Modern India 2. Trade in the Shaping of Early Modern India: Notes on the Deccan 3. The Story of Bengal's Urbanization: Role of Trade in the Early Modern Period 4. Aceh-India Commercial and Literary Relations in the Seventeenth Century 5. Warfare in Early Modern South Asia, c.1520-c.1740 6. What Does the Emperor of India Look Like? European Representations of Indian Rulers (1650-1740) 7. 'Floating Political Rhetoric' in the Indian Ocean: Situating the Portuguese in the Mughal Foreign Politics 8. Scourge of the Seas: Malabar Pirates and the European Expansion in the Indian Ocean (c.1600-1800) 9. Weavers in Early Modern South Asia (Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centuries) 10. Indian Textiles in the Ottoman Empire: The Example of Damascus around 1700 11. The Maratha Court and the Embassies of Saint-Lubin and M. Montigny: A Truce towards Cordial Relations 12. The Unquiet Religious Backdrop to European East Indies Trade: Christian Polemical Literature and the First Portuguese Translation of the Bible, 1642-1694 13. The Techniques of Sword Making and Trade Practices: Taiid-e-Bisarat, a Treatise from Eighteenth Century Mughal Court 14. Elephants and the Making of Early Modern India List of Contributors