Claude Markovits tells the story of two groups of Hindu merchants from the towns of Shikarpur and Hyderabad in the province of Sind. Basing his account on previously neglected archival sources, the author charts the development of these communities, from the pre-colonial period through colonial conquest and up to independence, describing how they came to control trading networks throughout the world. While the book focuses on the trade of goods, money and information from Sind to the widely dispersed locations of Kobe, Panama, Bukhara and Cairo, it also throws light on the nature of trading diasporas from South Asia in their interaction with the global economy. This is a sophisticated and accessible book, written by one of the most distinguished economic historians in the field. It will appeal to scholars of South Asia, as well as to colonial historians and to students of religion.

The way merchants trade, think about business and represent commerce in art forms define merchant culture. The world between 1500 and 1800 encompassed different merchant cultures that stood alone and in contact with others. Culture, power relations and institutions framed similarities and differences and outlined the global outcome of these exchanges.

In recent decades, private investment has led to an economic resurgence in India. But this is not the first time the region has witnessed impressive business growth. There have been many similar stories over the past 300 years. India's economic history shows that capital was relatively expensive. How, then, did capitalism flourish in the region? How did companies and entrepreneurs deal with the shortage of key resources? Has there been a common pattern in responses to these issues over the centuries? Through detailed case studies of firms, entrepreneurs, and business commodities, Tirthankar Roy answers these questions. Roy bridges the approaches of business and economic history, illustrating the development of a distinctive regional capitalism. On each occasion of growth, connections with the global economy helped firms and entrepreneurs better manage risks. Making these deep connections between India's economic past and present shows why history matters in its remaking of capitalism today.

This book explores the lives and social histories of Indians soldiers who fought in the First World War. It focuses on their motivations, experiences, and lives after returning from service in Europe, Mesopotamia, East Africa, and Palestine, to present a more complete picture of Indian participation in the war. The book looks at the Indian support to the war for political concessions from the British government and its repercussions through the perspective of the role played by more than one million Indian soldiers and labourers. It examines the social and cultural aspects of the experience of fighting on foreign soil in a deadly battle and their contributions which remain largely unrecognised. From micro-histories of fighting soldiers, aspects of recruitment and deployment, to macro-histories connecting different aspects of the War, the volume explores a variety of themes including: the material incentives, coercion and training which converted peasants into combatants; encounters of travelling Indian soldiers with other societies; and the contributions of returned soldiers in Indian society. The book will be useful to researchers and students of history, post-colonial studies, sociology, literature, and cultural studies as well as for those interested in military history, World War I, and colonial history.

In this book, Dr Sarah Ansari examines the system of political control constructed by the British in Sind between 1843 and 1947. In particular, she explores the part of the local Muslim elite, the pirs or hereditary sufi saints. Using a wealth of historical material and in depth interviews, the author looks at the development of the institution of the pir, its power base and the mechanics of the system of control into which the pirs were drawn. The overall success of the political system depended on the willingness of the elite to participate and Dr Ansari argues that it did indeed work in Sind. This enabled the British to govern while allowing the pirs to adapt to colonial rule, and later independence, without serious damage to their interests. The author demonstrates that only in the heightened nationalist atmosphere of the 1940s did the system break down.

In Chinese and Indian Merchants in Modern Asia, the contributors put together an important and lucid study of overseas Chinese and Indian merchants and their impacts on the emerging global economy from the nineteenth to twentieth centuries. In contrast to the conventional focus on the merchants’ networks per se, the chapters of this volume uncover their “networking,” the process in which they constructed and utilized linkages based on the shared concepts such as caste, kin alliances, and religion. By analyzing the interactions between the merchants and the European and Japanese empires, along with Asian states, this volume provides the critical insights into the configuration of the regional economic order in the past and at present.

This volume traces the second great expansion of the Islamic world eastwards from the eleventh century to the eighteenth. As the faith crossed cultural boundaries, the trader and the mystic became as important as the soldier and the administrator. Distinctive Islamic idioms began to emerge from other great linguistic traditions apart from Arabic, especially in Turkish, Persian, Urdu, Swahili, Malay and Chinese. The Islamic world transformed and absorbed new influences. As the essays in this collection demonstrate, three major features distinguish the time and place from both earlier and modern experiences of Islam. Firstly, the steppe tribal peoples of central Asia had a decisive impact on the Islamic lands. Secondly, Islam expanded along the trade routes of the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Thirdly, Islam interacted with Asian spirituality, including Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Taoism and Shamanism. It was during this period that Islam became a truly world religion.

The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Global Business draws together a wide array of state-of-the-art research on multinational enterprises. The volume aims to deepen our historical understanding of how firms and entrepreneurs contributed to transformative processes of globalization. This book explores how global business facilitated the mechanisms of cross-border interactions that affected individuals, organizations, industries, national economies and international relations. The 37 chapters span the Middle Ages to the present day, analyzing the emergence of institutions and actors alongside key contextual factors for global business development. Contributors examine business as a central actor in globalization, covering myriad entrepreneurs, organizational forms and key industrial sectors. Taking a historical view, the chapters highlight the intertwined and evolving nature of economic, political, social, technological and environmental patterns and relationships. They explore dynamic change as well as lasting continuities, both of which often only become visible – and can only be fully understood – when analyzed in the long run. With dedicated chapters on challenges such as political risk, sustainability and economic growth, this prestigious collection provides a one-stop shop for a key business discipline. Chapter 31 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Trade connections and cultural exchange between Africa and the rest of the global South have existed for centuries. Since the end of the Cold War, these connections have expanded and diversified dramatically, with emerging economies such as China, India, and Brazil becoming increasingly important both as sources of trade and as a destination for African migrants. But while these trends have attracted growing scholarly attention, there has so far been little appreciation of the sheer breadth and variety of this exchange, or of its deeper social impact. This collection brings together a wide array of scholarly perspectives to explore the movement of people, commodities, and ideas between Africa and the wider global South, with rich empirical case studies ranging from Senegalese migrants in Argentina to Lebanese traders in Nigeria. The contributors argue that this exchange represents a form of 'globalization from below' which defies many of the prevailing Western assumptions about migration and development, and which can only be understood if we consider the full range and complexity of migrant experiences. Multidisciplinary in scope, Mobility between Africa, Asia and Latin America is essential reading for students and scholars across the social sciences interested in the interconnected economic and social make-up of the global South.

Using cutting-edge theory regarding trade networks and diaspora, this book offers an innovative analysis of Sephardic merchants in 17th c. Amsterdam’s trade. Challenging views that Sephardic success stemmed from endogamous business relationships, it shows that Sephardic merchants traded with non-Sephardim.