The Mughals, the Portuguese and the Indian Ocean
Changing Imageries of Maritime India

Price: 850

This book explores the changing meanings that 'maritime India' acquired during the early modern period as a result of the frequent efforts of the Mughals and the Portuguese, from two different fronts, to control its vast, resourceful enclaves and profit-yielding neighbourhoods. By analysing the highly nuanced socioeconomic processes of these regions and addressing themes that have as yet remained unexplored, this volume creates a new framework to understand the varying nature of maritime India.    Some of the issues explored here focus on the political implications of the religious dialogues between Akbar and Jesuits; the attempts of the Portuguese to create a supportive social group out of the Paravas in the Pearl Fishery Coast; the creation of parallel circuits to Ottoman markets in the eastern Mediterranean as an alternative to the Cape Route trade of the Portuguese; the multiple strands of trade between coastal western India and the markets of East Africa; the economic and political processes that prompted the shifting of the Mughal capital from the hinterland to the vicinity of the major maritime trading centres of northern Konkan; voices of dissent in Christianity and discourses on early nationalism; the changing perceptions of Portuguese enclaves in Bengal and aspects of the ethnic mutation of the Luso-Indians as well as the social manoeuvrings of the English.
    The Mughals, the Portuguese and the Indian Ocean: Changing Imageries of Maritime India will be of interest to students and scholars of early modern history of India in general and those studying transitions in maritime India in particular.

The Author
Pius Malekandathil is currently Professor at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Link