Marina B.V. Martin

Bio: Marina B.V. Martin is an academic researcher from London School of Economics and Political Science. The author has contributed to research in topics: Hawala. The author has an hindex of 2, co-authored 2 publications receiving 82 citations.

Hundi/Hawala: The Problem of Definition

Abstract: In contemporary times, Hundi has collected countless labels; the international press has spurned innumerable villainous descriptions, the bulk of which have helped to perpetuate a dense fog of notoriety. The critical problem lies in definition. As there is an incomplete understanding of hundi's form and remit, there is also a rather limited understanding of why the system persists, set against the backdrop of modern banking. In many ways the problem of definition presented legal and financial authorities of the early and late twentieth century with core issues which remain unresolved and problematic for authorities in the twenty-first century. By drawing on archival and other historical material pertaining to the system's usage amongst Indian merchants, this paper attempts to tackle much of the confusion and many misconceptions surrounding hundi. The discussion explores the idea that hundi is more accurately described as an indigenous banking system endowed with a complex range of functions, but whose central purpose is trade.

Hundi/hawala: the problem of definition

Abstract: In contemporary times, hundi has collected countless labels; the international press has spurned innumerable villainous descriptions, the bulk of which have helped to perpetuate a dense fog of notoriety. The critical problem lies in definition. As there is an incomplete understanding of hundi's form and remit, there is also a rather limited understanding of why the system persists, set against the backdrop of modern banking. In many ways the problem of definition presented legal and financial authorities of the early and late twentieth century with core issues which remain unresolved and problematic for authorities in the twenty-first century. By drawing on archival and other historical material pertaining to the system's usage amongst Indian merchants, this paper attempts to tackle much of the confusion and many misconceptions surrounding hundi. The discussion explores the idea that hundi is more accurately described as an indigenous banking system endowed with a complex range of functions, but whose central purpose is trade.

The Cambridge economic history of modern Europe

Abstract: Unlike most existing textbooks on the economic history of modern Europe, which offer a country-by-country approach, The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Europe rethinks Europe's economic history since 1700 as unified and pan-European, with the material organized by topic rather than by country. This second volume tracks Europe's economic history through three major phases since 1870. The first phase was an age of globalization and of European economic and political dominance that lasted until the First World War. The second, from 1914 to 1945, was one of war, deglobalization, and depression and the third was one of growing integration not only within Europe but also between Europe and the global economy. Leading authors offer comprehensive and accessible introductions to these patterns of globalization and deglobalization as well as to key themes in modern economic history such as economic growth, business cycles, sectoral developments, and population and living standards.

A Sea of Debt: Law and Economic Life in the Western Indian Ocean, 1780–1950

Abstract: In this innovative legal history of economic life in the Western Indian Ocean, Bishara examines the transformations of Islamic law and Islamicate commercial practices during the emergence of modern capitalism in the region. In this time of expanding commercial activity, a melange of Arab, Indian, Swahili and Baloch merchants, planters, jurists, judges, soldiers and seamen forged the frontiers of a shared world. The interlinked worlds of trade and politics that these actors created, the shared commercial grammars and institutions that they developed and the spatial and socio-economic mobilities they engaged in endured until at least the middle of the twentieth century. This major study examines the Indian Ocean from Oman to India and East Africa over an extended period of time, drawing together the histories of commerce, law and empire in a sophisticated, original and richly textured history of capitalism in the Islamic world.

The beds of empire: Power and profit at the pearl fisheries of South India and Sri Lanka, c.1770-1840

Abstract: The Gulf of Mannar—the shallow body of water between present-day India and Sri Lanka—was one of the largest sources of natural pearls in the world for at least two millennia. This dissertation focuses on a relatively brief period during which managerial control over the human and natural resources of the pearling industry transferred from Dutch to British powers. The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries also witnessed a shift in political economic thought, as classical liberalism dislodged mercantilism as the prevailing framework for interpreting the relationship between the state and economy. The Company and Crown governments brought an assemblage of ideas to bear on the management and governance of people and oysters that sought to not only increase productivity but also fundamentally reshape the social, economic, and political foundations of the pearling industry. However, the attempt by British officials to extricate local networks and institutions from pearling operations was fraught with contradictions and seldom delivered on the promise of reform. Through an examination of key targets of government intervention—labor, markets, merchants, sovereignty, and corruption—this dissertation explores the interstices between success and failure and tracks such developments through the evolving contexts of colonialism and imperialism in India and Sri Lanka. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group South Asia Regional Studies First Advisor Daud Ali

India and the Islamic Heartlands: An Eighteenth-Century World of Circulation and Exchange

Abstract: 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.