Indian merchants and Eurasian trade, 1600-1750
By: Stephen Frederic Dale.
Series: Cambridge studies in Islamic civilization
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Cambridge [England]; New York, NY, USA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 162
Subjects: India -- Commerce -- Eurasia -- History.; Eurasia -- Commerce -- India -- History.
Description: In this remarkable 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.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 142-157) and index.