The remains of Dutch East India Company forts are scattered throughout littoral Asia and Africa. But how important were the specific characteristics of European bastion-trace fortifications to... Show moreThe remains of Dutch East India Company forts are scattered throughout littoral Asia and Africa. But how important were the specific characteristics of European bastion-trace fortifications to Early Modern European expansion? The Company Fortress takes on this question by studying the system of fortifications built and maintained by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in present-day India and Sri Lanka. It uncovers the stories of the forts and their designers, arguing that many of these engineers were in fact amateurs and their creations contained serious flaws. Subsequent engineers were hampered by their disagreement over fortification design: there proved not to be a single ‘European school’ of fortification design. The study questions the importance of fortification design for European expansion, shows the relationship between siege and naval warfare, and highlights changing perceptions by the VOC of the capabilities of new polities in India in the late eighteenth century. Show less
The wholesale and retail market for Asian goods in Europe is still largely unexplored. Historians’ growing interest in consumption patterns is now revealing the importance of Asian products in the... Show moreThe wholesale and retail market for Asian goods in Europe is still largely unexplored. Historians’ growing interest in consumption patterns is now revealing the importance of Asian products in the nascent European consumer market. Earlier studies have already found that the Dutch East India Company moved from shipping only luxury commodities to supplying Europe with products (coffee, tea and sugar) intended for an increasingly broad range of consumers. By compiling and analyzing a database of purchases at the auctions of the VOC in Zeeland in the eighteenth century this article investigates a crucial link between trade with Asia and consumption in Europe. It also reveals that the company catered to the burgeoning slave trade of Zeeland. We find that the auctions were dominated by a small group of wholesalers who potentially had the power to dictate the commercial policy of the company in Asia. Show less
This dissertation examines the political economy of the Ganga River during the early modern period. Thematically, the seven chapters of the dissertation may be categorized in three broad divisions.... Show moreThis dissertation examines the political economy of the Ganga River during the early modern period. Thematically, the seven chapters of the dissertation may be categorized in three broad divisions. Taking a longue dur_e perspective, the first two chapters situate the Ganga and its plain in the wider cultural and geographical framework of the Indian subcontinent. While Chapter 1 is concerned with the central role of the Ganga in Indian culture and civilization since the first millennium BC, Chapter 2 discusses early migration and the settlement pattern along the Ganga by paying close attention to the environmental predispositions of the region. The second broad division relates to the Ganga as connecting and feeding the political economy of northern India during the early modern period. The Ganga linked the region with the maritime economy, facilitated navigation, transportation of merchandise and also facilitated political control. Thus, Chapters 3 to 6 examine the political economic processes along the Ganga in eastern India, the integration of the regional commercial economy with the maritime global economy, bullion flows and production processes of such merchandise as saltpeter, opium and textiles. As Bihar offered these commodities, its economy pulled the maritime traders who approached the region through the Ganga highway. The inflows of specie boosted the economy and the agricultural and craft-productions kept pace with the increasing demands in overseas markets. Benefitting from the expanding economy of Bihar, the zamindars (warlords-cum-gentry) asserted their control over the Ganga and chocked the flow of resources to the Mughal imperial coffers and thus paving the way for Mughal decline in the eighteenth century. The third and last thematic division in Chapter 7 focuses on the decline of the Mughal Empire, zamindar-led regional centralization, and the political transition to EIC rule. Show less
