Encounters on the Opposite Coast: The Dutch East India Company and the Nayaka State of Madurai in the Seventeenth Century

Description

In Encounters of the Opposite Coast Markus Vink provides a narrative of the first half century of cross-cultural interaction between the Dutch East India Company (VOC), one of the great northern European chartered companies, and Madurai, one of the 'great southern Nayakas' and successor-states of the Vijayanagara empire, in southeast India (c. 1645-1690). A shared interest in trade and at times converging political objectives formed the unstable foundations for a complex relationship fraught with tensions, a mixture of conflict and coexistence typical of the 'age of contained conflict'. Drawing extensively on archival materials, Markus Vink covers a topic neglected by both Company historians and their Indian counterparts and sheds important light on a 'black hole in South Indian history'. Encounters on the Opposite Coast: The Dutch East India Company and the Nayaka State of Madurai in the Seventeenth Century Copyright Contents General Editor’s Foreword Preface List of Plates, Maps and Tables Acknowledgements Maps Abbreviations Introduction 1: Images and Ideologies 2: Treasure for Textiles: The Import Trade 3: Treasure for Textiles: The Export Trade Figures following 4: First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 5: From Sideshow to Main Theatre of War, 1658–1669 6: The Bitter Fruits of War, 1670–1679 7: Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 Personalia Currency, Weights, and Measures Glossary Bibliography Index