Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600-1750In this remarkable 1994 work of comparative economic history, Stephen Dale studies the activities and economic significance of the Indian mercantile communities which traded in Iran, Central Asia and Russia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The author uses Russian sources, hitherto largely ignored, to show that these merchants represented part of the hegemonic trade diaspora of the Indian world economy, thus challenging the conventional interpretation of world economic history that European merchants overwhelmed their Asian counterparts in the early modern era. The book not only demonstrates the vitality of Indian mercantile capitalism, but also offers a unique insight into the social characteristics of an Indian expatriate trading community in the Volga-Caspian port of Astrakhan. |
Contents
An Indian world economy | 1 |
The Eurasian context | 7 |
India Iran and Turan in 1600 | 14 |
The economies | 15 |
Commerce and the state | 30 |
IntraAsian trade | 42 |
The Indian diaspora in Iran and Turan | 45 |
Trade routes | 46 |
The New Trade Regulations | 95 |
Merchants and the state | 98 |
The Indian diaspora in the Volga basin | 101 |
Patterns of Indian commerce | 108 |
The Indian firm in Astrakhan | 112 |
Companies and capital | 121 |
Peddlers merchants and moneylenders | 126 |
Imperial collapse mercantilism and the Mughul diaspora | 128 |
Multan and the Multanis | 55 |
Mediatory trade | 64 |
The Multanis of Isfahan | 66 |
Technology transfers | 75 |
IndoRussian commerce in the early modern era | 78 |
The Indian guesthouse in Astrakhan | 86 |
Borzois and gyrfalcons | 90 |
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Common terms and phrases
Abu'l Fadl Afghan Afghanistan Akbar Antonova Armenians Asian Astrakhan Indian Babur Balkh Borgomale Bukhara business in various Cambridge University Press capital caravan caravansarais Caspian census Central Asia Chardin cloth coins commenda commercial cotton currency customs Darya Khan Delhi documents Dutch dvor early modern East India Company eastern Economic History English Eurasian European exports foreign merchants Gilan Golikova gosti gostiny dvor Habib Hindu Ibid important Indian diaspora Indian mercantile Indian merchants Iran and Turan Iranian Isfahan Islamic Kabul Khattris Lahore Luharnis markets Marwari Monetary moneylenders Moscow Mughul and Safavid Mughul empire Mughul India Multan Muscovite Muslims Nauka nomads Ottoman overland Panjab population powindahs Qandahar region relatively repr roubles route rulers Russian Russian merchants Safavid Iran Safavid Period Samarqand seventeenth century Shah Abbas ships significant silk silver South Asian Steel and Crowther Surat textiles Timurid trade trans Travels Turan Turkic Uzbek Uzbek Turan various Persian Volga western