The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, 1630-1720

The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, 1630-1720
Author: Om Prakash
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2014-07-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1400857767

Om Prakash reveals the central role played by Bengal in the Dutch East India Company's activities in India in the seventeenth and the early eighteenth century and the resulting integration of India into the world economy. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Archives of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Local Institutions in Batavia (Jakarta)

The Archives of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Local Institutions in Batavia (Jakarta)
Author: Louisa Balk
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 572
Release: 2007-10-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 9047421795

The VOC (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the Dutch East India Company) was the largest of the early modern European trading companies operating in Asia. Its operations produced not only warehouses packed with spices, coffee, tea, textiles, porcelain and silk, but also shiploads of documents. Data on political, economic, cultural, religious, and social conditions spread over an enormous area circulated between the VOC establishments, the administrative centre of the trade in Batavia, now the city of Jakarta, and the Board of Directors in the Netherlands. The co-operation between the National Archives of Indonesia and the Netherlands resulted in this extensive catalogue of fifteen archives of VOC institutions in Jakarta. The VOC records are included in UNESCO ́s Memory of the World Register.

Precious Metals and Commerce

Precious Metals and Commerce
Author: Om Prakash
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2024-10-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1040233104

Precious metals played a key role in inter-continental trade between Europe and Asia in the early modern period. An assured supply of these metal was indeed a pre-requisite to the procurement of Asian goods such as spices, textiles and raw silk. Once these metals had been imported into Asia, they were converted into the coinage of the country concerned. The 'bullion for goods' pattern of trade had important implications for the level of output, income, employment and prices in the Asian societies. This collection of essays by Professor Om Prakash explores these issues in relation mainly to the Dutch East India Company. Given the scale of its operations, as well as its unique character as the only European corporate group to engage in large scale intra-Asian trade as an integral part of its overall trading strategy, the VOC is a particularly appropriate medium through which to analyse these issues. Les métaux précieux jouèrent in rôle clef dans le commerce international entre l’Europe et l’Asie au début de la période moderne. La présence d’un stock assuré de ces métaux était, en effet, un facteur nécessaire afin de se procurer des produits asiatiques tels les épices, les textiles et la soie grège. Une fois importés en Asie, ces métaux étaient convertis dans le monnaie du pays concerné. La structure commerciale du bullion for goods avait des implications importantes en ce qui concernait le niveau de production, l’emploi et les prix au sein des sociétés asiatiques. Cette collestion d’essais du professeur Om Prakash explore ces questions en relation plus particulièrement avec la conpagnie hollandaise d’Inde Orientale. Etant donnée l’envergure de ses opérations, ainsi que son caractère unique en tant que seule corporation européenne engagée dans un commerciale, le VOC est un particulièrement bon exemple à travers lequel analyser ces questions.

Bullion for Goods

Bullion for Goods
Author: Om Prakash
Publisher: Manohar Publishers
Total Pages: 430
Release: 2004
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9788173045387

The spectacular rise in world trade following the great discoveries of the closing years of the fifteenth century had important implications for each of the major segments of the newly emerging early modern international economy. As far as Asia was concerned, the commercial operations of the European corporate enterprises as well as private traders in the Indian Ocean region between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries had far-reaching consequences for the economies and the polities of the countries of the region. Asian merchants engaged in the Indian Ocean trade interacted with the European intruders into the Ocean in a variety of ways. The twenty-one essays included in this volume are firmly embedded in original archival sources. They deal mainly with issues arising out of the Europeans' commercial presence in the Indian Ocean region and the interaction they had with their Asian counterparts. The volume discusses how over a span of three centuries, the Indian economy was integrated into the world economy as a result of these interactions. The macroeconomic implications of the European encounter for the Indian economy are analysed in detail. Another important area explored at some length is the monetary history of the subcontinent in the early modern period. This collection of essays will be of interest of the historians of India and of the Indian Ocean. It will also have a great deal of appeal for the historians of early modern Asia as well as Europe. Those interested in what is being increasingly described as world history will also find the volume useful.

Fortunes À Faire

Fortunes À Faire
Author: Catherine Manning
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351936115

Catherine Manning is concerned to relate the French traders to their social, regional and financial roots, and to trace their connections with other commercial groups in India, both European and Asian. The French evidence that she assembles, including much archival material, also makes a significant contribution to the debate about economic decline and renewal in 18th-century India. Her analysis shows that economic and political developments in South India were crucial to the French move from trade to war in the 1740s. Finally the book examines why the French failed in an enterprise which was to succeed so signally for the British only a few decades later.

Polycoloniality

Polycoloniality
Author: Saugata Bhaduri
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2021-12-30
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9389812569

Polycoloniality is a study of the activities of non-British European powers and players - primarily the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French, the Danish, the 'Germans' (representatives of the Austrian and Prussian empires), the Swedish and the Greek - in Bengal from the late 13th to the early 19th century, and their role in shaping Bengal's brush with 'colonial modernity' prior to, and possibly more foundationally than, the English. Much of the traditional historiography of colonialism, in South Asia in general and Bengal in particular, and the resultant postcolonial commonsense, is woefully mononational, with the focus being almost exclusively on England and its colonial exploits. This is obviously factually incorrect and inadequate, with the multiple European nations named above having had simultaneous colonial contact with Bengal from the 16th century, and there having been a steady flow of Europeans, primarily Italians, to Bengal from at least the late 13th century. More importantly, it is these multiple European players, rather than the English, who can be credited with the setting up of the first cosmopolitan cities in Bengal, its first colleges and universities, the beginnings of print culture in Bengali, the foundations of the modern linguistic, literary and cultural registers of Bengal, the first instances of social and political reforms, etc. Apart from an elaboration of all the above, can Polycoloniality, or a re-look at Bengal's colonial history through the lens of plurality, also offer a template to understand the multinational forms of current new-imperialism more fittingly than postcolonial commonsense can?

Maritime History as Global History

Maritime History as Global History
Author: Maria Fusaro
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2017-10-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1786948923

This study aims to provide new insights into the connections between maritime history and global history. It demonstrates the significance of maritime activity as a conduit of global exchange by examining local, national, and international interdependencies and trade networks, and a broad range of time periods, geographical areas, and various sub-divisions of maritime historical research. It is composed of ten essays, with an introductory chapter and concluding chapter. The first five essays discuss the effects globalisation on shipping in the early modern period; the following three discuss maritime transportation and the economics of industrialisation from the nineteenth century to the present day; the next discusses the impact of global entrepreneurialism on maritime history; the penultimate discusses the connections and variables between maritime and global history; and the concluding chapter examines the theoretical assumptions surrounding the two disciplines, using the globalisation of Early Modern Spain as a case study to do so. The study demonstrates that the core strength of maritime history is its essential place in global history, and that the process of globalisation began at sea.

On the Economic Encounter Between Asia and Europe, 1500-1800

On the Economic Encounter Between Asia and Europe, 1500-1800
Author: Om Prakash
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2023-05-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000943356

The history of the economic contacts between Asia and Europe dates back to at least the early years of the Common Era. But it was only after the overcoming of the transport technology barrier to the growth of trade between the two continents following the discovery by the Portuguese at the end of the 15th century of the all-water route to the East Indies that these contacts became regular and quantitatively significant. The Portuguese were joined at the beginning of the 17th century by the Dutch and the English East India companies. The Europeans operated in the Indian Ocean alongside the Indian and other Asian merchants with no special privileges being available to them. The present collection of essays by Professor Om Prakash first deals with the Indian merchants’ participation in the Indian Ocean trade on the eve of the Europeans’ arrival in the Ocean. The subsequent essays include a discussion of the Portuguese involvement in the Euro-Asian and the Indian Ocean trade. Attention is then turned to the trading activities of the Dutch and the English East India companies. The volume also contains essays on textile manufacturing and trade as well as on coinage and wages in India. The concluding essay deals with trade and politics in the province of Bengal.