India and the Islamic Heartlands: An Eighteenth-Century World of Circulation and Exchange
Cambridge University Press, 3/29/2016
EAN 9781107121270, ISBN10: 1107121272
Hardcover, 353 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm
Language: English
Based on the chance survival of a remarkable cache of documents, India and the Islamic Heartlands recaptures a vanished and forgotten world from the eighteenth century spanning much of today's Middle East and South Asia. Gagan D. S. Sood focuses on ordinary people - traders, pilgrims, bankers, clerics, brokers, and scribes, among others - who were engaged in activities marked by large distances and long silences. By elucidating their everyday lives in a range of settings, from the family household to the polity at large, Sood pieces together the connective tissue of a world that lay beyond the sovereign purview. Recapturing this obscured and neglected world helps us better understand the region during a pivotal moment in its history, and offers new answers to old questions concerning early modern Eurasia and its transition to colonialism.
Prologue
Introduction
1. Cognitive patterns
approaching the world
2. A cosmic order
the meaning and end of life
3. A familial order
ties of blood, duty and affect
4. A relational order
intimates, strangers and plurality
5. A communications order
language, writing and couriers
6. A political order
temporal authority and governance
7. Everyday practices
indispensable skills and techniques
8. Flows and interactions
the arena's connective tissue
Conclusion
Glossary
Bibliography
Index.