In this book, Dr Stewart Gordon presents a comprehensive history of one of the most colourful and least-understood kingdoms of India: the Maratha Empire. The empire was founded by Shivaji in the mid-seventeenth century, spread across most of India during the following century, and was conquered by the British in the nineteenth century. Using administrative documents of the Maratha polity, family papers and Histories of the Empire, Stewart Gordon explores the origin of the Marathas, their emergence as elite families, patterns of loyalty and strategies for maintaining legitimacy. He traces how the armies developed into European-style infantry and artillery and assesses the economics that funded the polity, especially taxation and credit. Finally the author considers the lasting effects the empire had on administrations, law and trade patterns of Central India, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
In this book, Dr. Stewart Gordon presents the first comprehensive history of the Maratha polity, which was an important regional kingdom in the seventeenth century and the largest political entity of eighteenth century India. He focuses on the origins of the elite families, problems of legitimacy and loyalty, military organization and change, and the development of administration, tax collection and religious patronage. Through the use of a vast array of documents, the author also gives a picture of everyday life in the Maratha polity.
This study offers a panoramic view of the evolution of the South Asian state's military system and its contribution to the effectiveness of the state itself."--BOOK JACKET.
Imperial Sovereignty and Local Politics takes at its focus the historically significant interconnections between local polities and imperial formations in South Asia. Using the relationship between the Bhadauria Rajputs and the Mughal, Maratha and British Empires as a prism to evaluate the constitution of sovereignty and the process of state formation, it demonstrates the enduring relevance of symbolism and ritual, the persistence of pre-colonial political forms and ideologies and the continuing importance of local power networks in moulding imperial projects. Employing theories of state formation borrowed from anthropology, Singh emphasizes the need to conceptually separate political authority from symbolic sovereignty and examine the local context of imperial politics. This work provides a compelling re-orientation of the way we understand the nature of imperial states, the experience of sovereignty and the processes of political change in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
This is a cross-cultural study of the political economy of war in South Asia. Randolf G. S. Cooper combines an overview of Maratha military culture with a battle-by-battle analysis of the 1803 Anglo-Maratha Campaigns. Building on that foundation he challenges ethnocentric assumptions about British superiority in discipline, drill and technology. He argues that these campaigns, in which Arthur Wellesley served with distinction, represent the military high-water mark of the Marathas who posed the last serious opposition to the formation of the British Raj. Dr Cooper asserts that the real contest for India was never a single decisive battle for the subcontinent. Rather it turned on a complex social and political struggle for control of the South Asian military economy. The author shows that victory in 1803 hinged as much on finance, diplomacy, politics and intelligence as it did on battlefield manoeuvre and war itself.
Providing a different approach to the history of India than previously advocated, this textbook argues that there was constant interaction between peoples and cultures. This interactive, dialogic approach provides a clear understanding of how power and social relations operated in South Asia. Covering the history of India from Mughal times to the first years of Independence, the book consists of chapters divided roughly between political and thematic questions. Topics discussed include: Mughal warfare and military developments The construction of Indian culture Indian, regional and local political articulation India’s Independence and the end of British Rule Women and governmentality The rise of the Dalit movement As well as a detailed timeline that provides a useful overview of key events in the history of India, a set of background reading is included after each chapter for readers who wish to go beyond the remit of this text. Written in an accessible, narrative style, the textbook will be suitable in courses on Indian and South Asian history, as well as courses on world history and South Asian studies.
This book portrays the world history in an entirely new landscape which highlights the pace of development of all the major civilizations of the world since the dawn of human history. Mans rational behavior compelled him to search and innovate new things in order to emerge victorious in his struggle for existence, and in the process, he elevated human civilization. But different civilizations developed on different lines. Some were fast initially but later turned static, and some were static initially but later gained momentum to become world leaders, while some were in between. The author has broadly categorizes all the world civilizations into seven segments and demonstrated their behavior of development graphically. Indian civilization has been evaluated as initially glorious and highly developed, but later it turned static due to several inherent factors. Anglo-Saxon civilization has been adjudged as initially primitive and after AD 1000 it began to move slowly and later gained pace to become world leader. It has been suggested in the book that Indians should learn from the Anglo-Saxons and should follow their road to development, which has been heavily propitiated with scientific and technological innovations and rational thinking since AD 1000.
This book deals with the sweep of traditional Indian history as well as with the post-independence events, judicially balancing narrative and analysis in the conceptual framework of postcolonial and postmodernist approaches, covering the process of change in India through the centuries.
The military, in one form or another, are always part of the picture. This unique and compelling study investigates the circumstances that have produced starkly different systems of recruiting and employing soldiers in different parts of the globe over the last 500 years, on the basis of case studies from Europe, Africa, America, the Middle East and Asia. The authors, including Robert Johnson, Frank Tallett and Gilles Weinstein, conduct an international comparison of military service and warfare as forms of labour, and the soldiers as workers. This is the first study to undertake a systematic comparative analysis of military labour, addressing two distinct, and normally quite separate, communities: labour historians and military historians.
This one-volume thematic encyclopedia examines life in contemporary India, with topical sections focusing on geography, history, government and politics, economy, social classes and ethnicity, religion, food, etiquette, literature and drama, and more. • Includes "Day in the Life" features that portray specific daily activities of various people in the country, from high school students to working class people to professionals, providing readers with insight into daily life in the country • Defines key terms related to the reading in a glossary • Highlights interesting facts and figures, including information on the military, industry and labor, and finances, in an appendix • Provides at-a-glance information about India's festivals and feast days with a chart of national holidays • Illuminates the text with photos and sidebars, helping to illustrate key topics and allow students to dive more deeply into ideas
