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'.

In Encounters on the Opposite Coast Markus Vink offers a detailed narrative of the first half century of cross-cultural interaction between the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Nayaka state of Madurai in southeast India (c. 1645-1690).

A comprehensive study of the connection between Calvinist missions and Dutch imperial expansion during the early modern period "A tour de force offering the reader the best study of global Calvinism in the realms of the Dutch East India Company."--Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia, editor, Calvinism and Religious Toleration in the Dutch Golden Age Calvinism went global in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as close to a thousand Dutch Reformed ministers, along with hundreds of lay chaplains, attached themselves to the Dutch East India and West India companies. Across Asia, Africa, and the Americas where the trading companies set up operation, Dutch ministers sought to convert "pagans," "Moors," Jews, and Catholics and to spread the cultural influence of Protestant Christianity. As Dutch ministers labored under the auspices of the trading companies, the missionary project coalesced, sometimes grudgingly but often readily, with empire building and mercantile capitalism. Simultaneously, Calvinism became entangled with societies around the world as encounters with Indigenous peoples shaped the development of European religious and intellectual history. Though historians have traditionally treated the Protestant and European expansion as unrelated developments, Charles H. Parker the explores the global reach of Dutch Calvinism as an intermingling of a Protestant faith, commerce, and empire.

Reveals a distinct trajectory of Islamic history that developed among Muslim merchant communities across the medieval Indian Ocean.

The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Biblical Criticism is a comprehensive treatment of a relatively new form of scholarship-one of the most compelling and contested theories to emerge in recent times, and a topic that actively seeks to expand the ways in which the Bible can be studied, interpreted, and applied. Generally speaking, postcolonialism aims to critique and dismantle hegemonic worldviews and power structures, while giving voice to previously marginalized peoples and systems of thought. This approach, often varied in form, has inevitably engaged with the text and reception of the Bible, a scripture that Western colonizers introduced to-and often imposed upon-their colonial subjects. With a globally diverse list of contributors, the Handbook aims to cover the perspective and context of the authors of the Bible, as well as the modern experiences of imperialism, resistance, decolonization, and nationalism. Moreover, the volume includes both a theoretical overview and an exploration of how the field intersects with related areas, such as gender studies, race, postmodernism, and liberation theology.

This monograph offers a thought-provoking thematic examination and chronological survey of the early modern Dutch overseas colonial expansion and downfall in Asia and in South Africa, among other institutional frameworks through the VOC, stressing its colonial character rather than company and trade features.

Pearls, People, and Power is the first book to examine the trade, distribution, production, and consumption of pearls and mother-of-pearl in the global Indian Ocean over more than five centuries. While scholars have long recognized the importance of pearling to the social, cultural, and economic practices of both coastal and inland areas, the overwhelming majority have confined themselves to highly localized or at best regional studies of the pearl trade. By contrast, this book stresses how pearling and the exchange in pearl shell were interconnected processes that brought the ports, islands, and coasts into close relation with one another, creating dense networks of connectivity that were not necessarily circumscribed by local, regional, or indeed national frames. Essays from a variety of disciplines address the role of slaves and indentured workers in maritime labor arrangements, systems of bondage and transoceanic migration, the impact of European imperialism on regional and local communities, commodity flows and networks of exchange, and patterns of marine resource exploitation between the Industrial Revolution and Great Depression. By encompassing the geographical, cultural, and thematic diversity of Indian Ocean pearling, Pearls, People, and Power deepens our appreciation of the underlying historical dynamics of the many worlds of the Indian Ocean. Contributors: Robert Carter, William G. Clarence-Smith, Joseph Christensen, Matthew S. Hopper, Pedro Machado, Julia T. Martínez, Michael McCarthy, Jonathan Miran, Steve Mullins, Karl Neuenfeldt, Samuel M. Ostroff, and James Francis Warren.

This book presents the socio-cultural and historical trajectories of the Deccan plateau as well as the coastal areas of the current states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa. It studies the art of diplomacy by discussing the diplomatic relations between the Marathas and various European companies, as well as the indigenous regional states. The author also probes into the Maratha naval policy, the evolution of a composite Deccani culture and the cultural flux that was taking place within the Maratha country. Through an interdisciplinary lens, the volume examines how caste and gender relations operated, how the idea of dissent was generated as well as the socio-political impact of various linguistic, ethnic and religious groups. Through a study of monuments, sculpture and paintings prevalent in the region, the book also discusses the developments in art and architecture in the Deccan. Rich in archival sources, this book is a must read for scholars and researchers of Indian history, colonial history, South Asian history, Maratha history and history in general.

As a continent lying to the east of Europe, Asia has been malleable to different spatial and temporal imaginations and politics. Recent scholarship has highlighted how the seemingly self-contained regional configurations of West and Central Asia, South and Southeast Asia, and East Asia carved by the Area Studies paradigm reflect changing (geo)political and economic interests than historical or cultural roots. This volume advances the question as to what Asia is, and as to whether there existed one or many Asia(s). It seeks to explore Asian societies as interconnected formations through trajectories/networks of circulation of people, ideas, and objects in the longue durée. Moving beyond the divides of Area Studies scholarship and the arbitrary borders set by late colonial empires and the rise of post-colonial nation-states, this volume maps critically the configuration of contact zones in which mobile bodies, minds, and cultures interact to foster new images, identities, and imaginations of Asia.

This monograph is a study of the interaction of politics and political theory in The Netherlands and Asia in the early seventeenth century. Its focal point is the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), who developed his rights and contract theories for the benefit of the United Dutch East India Company or VOC. The monograph reconstructs the immediate historical context of his political thought, as conceptualized in his early manuscript De Jure Praedae/On the Law of Prize and Booty and Mare Liberum/The Free Sea (1609). It argues that Grotius’ justification of Dutch interloping in the colonial empires of Spain and Portugal made possible the VOC’s rise to power in the Malay Archipelago, which resulted in the slow, but steady, loss of self-determination on the part of the inhabitants of the Spice Islands.