Description: In Indian history the long eighteenth century between 1650 and 1850 may be seen as a period of transition. In Kerela, the old order of the Nayar-power gradually changed to a more centralized state formation. Upto 1795 the Dutch East India Company participated in this process. In the lands around Cochin the Rajas tried to enhance their power over Nambuthiri and Nayar chiefs and they expanded their influence to the north in their struggle with the Zamorins of Calicut. Advised by Konkanis and Pattars they used the power of the Dutch as much as possible to their own advantage. Based on the archives of the Dutch East India Company this study shows how a special reading of these sources throws a new light on the history of the realm of Cochin in the period 1663-1720.

Focusing mainly on the Mappila Muslim trading family of the Arackal Ali Rajas, this book throws light on the repercussions of European commercial expansion on the traditional socio-political relations in the South Indian kigdom of Cannanore during the early-modern period.

This study of the early modern fortress town of Cochin in India, based on the rarely used VOC archival deposits in the Tamilnadu State Archives in Chennai (Madras), provides an intimate portrait of a Dutch urban community of East India Company servants and their dependents living within the larger social environment of the Malabar coast. It shows how between 1750 and 1830 the population of this Dutch settlement had adapted itself to the fundamental political and economic changes that occurred as a result of local state formation processes, the demise of the Dutch East India Company, and the change of regime that occurred when English administration was imposed on Fort Cochin in 1795.

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.

The Kingdom of the Netherlands is a small, but heavily populated country with almost 17 million inhabitants. It is one of the last kingdoms in Europe and in 2015 it celebrated its 200 years anniversary. The Netherlands became a kingdom after the Napoleonic era. During this period it was transformed into a centralized state. Before those years it had been one of few republics in Europe for about two centuries. That state was a confederacy, which emerged in the 1580s during its independence struggle against the Spanish Habsburgs. Although the present state is still monarchial, the Netherlands functions as a modern constitutional democracy, in which the king’s position is almost comparable with a ceremonial presidency. The majority of the Dutch population, however, appreciates the hereditary political presence of the House of Orange-Nassau, regarding this dynasty as a symbol of national unity and connection with the country’s past. This third edition of Historical Dictionary of the Netherlands contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 900 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Netherlands.

De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) had haar werkterrein in Azië. De twaalf artikelen in deze bundel analyseren de relaties tussen de Compagnie en de machthebbers op die Aziatische werkvloer. Zij bestrijken het gehele Aziatische octrooigebied van de VOC van Perzië tot Japan. De auteurs, allen internationale autoriteiten, gaan in op de Compagniesrelaties met Aziatische hoven en andere machtscentra tussen 1620 en 1720. In die periode voegde de VOC zich via diplomatie, handel of geweld in de locale machtsstructuren. Dit perspectief resulteert in een verrassende bundel. De bijdragen variëren van belangrijke revisies van opvattingen over Aziatische vorsten/elites en over de destructieve invloed van de VOC tot een diplomatiek misverstand tussen Batavia en het eerste Chinese gezantschap, van intelligence over de hofstructuur van Cochin tot close reading van een correspondentie tussen vorst van Ceylon en de VOC. De inleiding tekent gemeenschappelijke patronen: vorsten en VOC waren vaak tot elkaar veroordeeld zonder dat de ene of andere partij evident de overhand had; daarbij onderhield een geschenkencultuur van exotica (paarden en olifanten) veelal de vriendschap. Deze bundel is aangeboden aan dr. Jurrien van Goor bij zijn universitaire afscheid als koloniaal historicus. Zij bevat dan ook een bio- en historiografische schets en de bibliografie van deze VOC-kenner.

The Arabian Seas is a magisterial work on the world political economy (trade, war, power) that explores the intersect of the worlds of Islam (including South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East and East Africa) and the European world-economy (particularly the seafaring Portuguese, Dutch, and British) on the eve of the modern world system. It is likely to become a classic in its field and one of the pillars of the emerging literature in recent years that has begun to recast our understanding of the "early modern history" of Asia and the world economy, underlining the early and long predominance of Asia in the world economy and showing the long and deep ties between European and Asian economic and military interactions. This work centrally addresses current debates on the nature of the early modern world system and the relative strengths of East and West. There are no competitors for this book, but it may be compared with Braudel's masterful studies of the Mediterranean in the sense that it does for the Arabian Seas (Indian Ocean World) spanning South Asia, the Middle East, and the East African Coast and beyond what Braudel did for the Mediterranean.

A chronicle of the history of pepper. Describes its role in bringing Westerners to Asia, tracing the extraordinary voyages, exotic adventures and brutal violence that marked its early trade.

This volume looks into the ways Indian Ocean routes shaped the culture and contours of early modern India. IT shows how these and other historical processes saw India rebuilt and reshaped during late medieval times after a long age of relative ‘stagnation’, ‘isolation’ and ‘backwardness’. The various papers deal with such themes including interconnectedness between Africa and India, trade and urbanity in Golconda, the changing meanings of urbanization in Bengal, commercial and cultural contact between Aceh and India, changing techniques of warfare, representation of early modern rulers of India in contemporary European paintings, the impact of the Indian Ocean on the foreign policies of the Mughals, the meanings of piracy, labour process in the textile sector, Indo-Ottoman trade, Maratha-French relations, Bible translations and religious polemics, weapon making and the uses of elephants. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of early modern Indian history in general and those working on aspects of connected histories in particular.

This collection of historical studies deals with the multiple connections between the history and culture of the Jews of the Netherlands from the beginning of the seventeenth century until the period after the Holocaust, and phenomena and processes that distinguish the history of the Jewish people in the modern period. The Jews of the Netherlands were not only nourished by the cultural creativity of the great Sephardi and Ashkenazi centers, East and West, but also at various stages they served as a source of inspiration for Jews elsewhere in the Jewish Diaspora. The articles of this volume examin the influence of general Jewish history on that of the Jews of the Netherlands and focus on events and processes that highlight the significance of of Dutch Jewry for modern Jewish culture.