Sanjay Subrahmanyam

Bio: Sanjay Subrahmanyam is an academic researcher from University of California, Los Angeles. The author has contributed to research in topics: Empire & Historiography. The author has an hindex of 30, co-authored 136 publications receiving 3261 citations. Previous affiliations of Sanjay Subrahmanyam include École Normale Supérieure & University of Delhi.

Connected Histories: Notes towards a Reconfiguration of Early Modern Eurasia

Abstract: The majority of Japanese even today believe that the politico-cultural universe of the Edo period was fundamentally determined by the closure of the country. They also think that the opening of Japan can be reduced to the development of exchanges with the West, following the birth of the Meiji regime. It is hard for them to imagine that Japan developed in relation with other Asian countries, since they are hardly used to appreciating Asian cultures.

The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500-1700: A Political and Economic History

Abstract: Early modern Asia - geo-politics and economic change 15th- and 16th-century states the circulation of elites towards a taxonomy long-term trends Portuguese state and society, 1200-1500 crown and nobility in search of a bourgeoisie mercantilism and messianism summing up two patterns and their logic - creating an empire, 1498-1540 the early expeditions from Almeida to Albuquerque - defining the first pattern the second pattern - East of Cape Comorin the logic at work - Portuguese Asia, 1525-1540 towards the "crisis" the mid-16th century "crisis" the dilemmas of Joanine policy Sas, Sousas and Castros - Portuguese Asian officialdom in the crisis the mid-century debate the Far Eastern solution the Estado in 1570 between land-bound and sea-borne - reorientations, 1570-1610 trade and conquest - the Spanish view Spain, Portugal and the Atlantic turning girdling the globe the "Land" question the maritime challenge concessions and captains-major the beginnings of decline? empire in retreat, 1610-1665 political reconsolidation in Asia, 1570-1610 Syriam and Hurmuz - the beginnings of retreat reform and its consequences the decade of disasters - Portuguese Asia in the 1630s restoration, truce and failure, 1640-1652 the retreat completed, 1652-1665 Asians, Europeans and the retreat niches and networks - staying on, 1665-1700 the cape route and the Bahia trade the vicissitudes of the estado - the view from Goa Mozambique, Munhumutapa and prazo creation the Portuguese of the Bay of Bengal survival in the Far East - Macau and Timor the Portuguese, Dutch and English - a comparison Portuguese Asian society 1 - the official realm the problem of numbers the world of the Cassado networks, fortunes and patronage "Portuguese" and "foreigner" rise of the Solteiro the impact on Portugal Portuguese Asian society 2 - the frontier and beyond renegades and rebels mercenaries, firearms and fifth columnists converts and client communities a luso-Asian diaspora?.

Iranians Abroad: Intra-Asian Elite Migration and Early Modern State Formation

Abstract: The idea of trader communities spread across the shores of the Indian Ocean, or along the caravan routes of the Asian heartland, is a familiar one. Once designated as the ubiquitous “pedlars” of the “traditional trade of Asia,” these traders have more recently been described using the term “diaspora”—a term not restricted in its application, needless to add, to the Asian context. In the hands of Philip D. Curtin, the idea of traders in a diaspora has become a simple but powerful tool to analyze the phenomenon of what he terms “cross-cultural trade.” What, then, is a diaspora? To Curtin, a diaspora is “a nation of socially interdependent, but spatially dispersed communities,” that are, moreover, separated from their “host societies” in each locus in which they are situated (Curtin 1984:5). He continues: “The traders were specialists in a single kind of economic enterprise, whereas the host society was a whole society, with many occupations, class stratification and political divisions between the rulers and the ruled” (Curtin 1984:5).

The Making of a Munshi

Abstract: The difficult transition between the information and knowledge regimes of the precolonial and colonial political systems of South Asia was largely, though not exclusively, mediated by scribes, writers, statesmen, and accountants possessing a grasp of the chief language of power in that time, namely Persian. More than any vernacular language or Sanskrit, it was in Persian that the officials of the English East India Company conducted its early rule, administration, and even diplomacy in the years around the seizure of the revenues of Bengal in the mid-eighteenth century. Hence they naturally had to come to terms with the social group that was regarded as most proficient in this regard.1 To be sure, the Mughal aristocracy and its regional offshoots provided them with certain models of etiquette and statecraft, and various “Mirror of Princes” texts attracted the attention of Company officials. But the pragmatic realities of political economy that had to be dealt with could not be comprehended within the adab of the aristocrat, and the representatives of Company Bahadur were, in any event, scarcely qualified themselves to claim such an unambiguous status. The real interlocutor for the Company official thus was the munshi, who was mediator and spokesman (vakil), but also a key personage who could both read and draft materials in Persian, and who had a grasp over the realities of politics that men such as Warren Hastings, Antoine Polier, and Claude Martin found altogether indispensable.2 Though the term munshi is recognizable even today, it has shifted semantically over the years. Aficionados of Hindi films since the 1960s will recognize the character of the munshi as the accountant and henchman of the cruel and grasping zamindar, greasily rubbing his hands and usually unable to protest the immoral demands of his master.3 Specialists on colonial surveying operations in the Himalayas and Central Asia will recall that some of those sent out on such ventures were already called “pundits” and “moonshees” in the mid-nineteenth century.4 But the latter set of meanings is not our concern in this brief essay. Rather, we shall look at how, in the high Mughal period, one became a munshi, what attributes were principally called for, and what the chief educational demands were. The sources with which we approach this problem fall broadly into two categories. Relatively rare are the first-person accounts or autobiographical narratives that will be our principal concern here. More common are normative texts, corresponding to the “Mirror of Princes” type, but which we may term the “Mirror for Scribes.” Thus, in the reign of Aurangzeb, just as Mirza Khan could pen the Tuhfat al-Hind (Gift of India), in which he set out the key elements in the education of a well-brought-up Mughal prince,5 others wrote works such as the Nigarnamah-’i Munshi (Munshi’s Letterbook), which were primarily concerned with how a munshi was to be properly trained, and which technical branches of knowledge he ought rightfully to claim a mastery of.6 Earlier still, from the reign of Ja -

A Global Perspective: Reframing the History of Health, Medicine, and Disease.

Abstract: The emergence of global history has been one of the more notable features of academic history over the past three decades. Although historians of disease were among the pioneers of one of its earlier incarnations—world history—the recent “global turn” has made relatively little impact on histories of health, disease, and medicine. Most continue to be framed by familiar entities such as the colony or nation-state or are confined to particular medical “traditions.” This article aims to show what can be gained from taking a broader perspective. Its purpose is not to replace other ways of seeing or to write a new “grand narrative” but to show how transnational and transimperial approaches are vital to understanding some of the key issues with which historians of health, disease, and medicine are concerned. Moving on from an analysis of earlier periods of integration, the article offers some reflections on our own era of globalization and on the emerging field of global health.

P. E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa

Abstract: This history of African slavery from the fifteenth to the early twentieth centuries examines how indigenous African slavery developed within an international context. Paul E. Lovejoy discusses the medieval Islamic slave trade and the Atlantic trade as well as the enslavement process and the marketing of slaves. He considers the impact of European abolition and assesses slavery's role in African history. The book corrects the accepted interpretation that African slavery was mild and resulted in the slaves' assimilation. Instead, slaves were used extensively in production, although the exploitation methods and the relationships to world markets differed from those in the Americas. Nevertheless, slavery in Africa, like slavery in the Americas, developed from its position on the periphery of capitalist Europe. This new edition revises all statistical material on the slave trade demography and incorporates recent research and an updated bibliography.

The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India

Abstract: List of Maps Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction Culture, Power, (Pre)modernity The Cosmopolitan in Theory and Practice The Vernacular in Theory and Practice Theory, Metatheory, Practice, Metapractice PART 1. THE SANSKRIT COSMOPOLIS Chapter 1. The Language of the Gods Enters the World 1.1 Precosmopolitan Sanskrit: Monopolization and Ritualization 1.2 From Resistance to Appropriation 1.3. Expanding the Prestige Economy of Sanskrit Chapter 2. Literature and the Cosmopolitan Language of Literature 2.1. From Liturgy to Literature 2.2. Literary Language as a Closed Set 2.3. The Final Theory of Literary Language: Bhoja's Poetics Chapter 3. The World Conquest and Regime of the Cosmopolitan Style 3.1. Inscribing Political Will in Sanskrit 3.2. The Semantics of Inscriptional Discourse: The Poetics of Power, Malava, 1141 3.3. The Pragmatics of Inscriptional Discourse: Making History, Kalyana, 1008 Chapter 4. Sanskrit Culture as Courtly Practice 4.1. Grammatical and Political Correctness: The Politics of Grammar 4.2. Grammatical and Political Correctness: Grammar Envy 4.3. Literature and Kingly Virtuosity Chapter 5. The Map of Sanskrit Knowledge and the Discourse on the Ways of Literature 5.1. The Geocultural Matrix of Sanskrit Knowledge 5.2. Poetry Man, Poetics Woman, and the Birth-Space of Literature 5.3. The Ways of Literature: Tradition, Method, and Stylistic Regions Chapter 6. Political Formations and Cultural Ethos 6.1. Production and Reproduction of Epic Space 6.2. Power and Culture in a Cosmos Chapter 7. A European Countercosmopolis 7.1. Latinitas 7.2. Imperium Romanum PART 2. THE VERNACULAR MILLENIUM Chapter 8. Beginnings, Textualization, Superposition 8.1. Literary Newness Enters the World 8.2. From Language to Text 8.3. There Is No Parthenogenesis in Culture Chapter 9. Creating a Regional World: The Case of Kannada 9.1. Vernacularization and Political Inscription 9.2. The Way of the King of Poets and the Places of Poetry 9.3. Localizing the Universal Political: Pampa Bharatam 9.4. A New Philology: From Norm-Bound Practice to Practice-Bound Norm Chapter 10. Vernacular Poetries and Polities in Southern Asia 10.1. The Cosmopolitan Vernacularization of South and Southeast Asia 10.2. Region and Reason 10.3. Vernacular Polities 10.4. Religion and Vernacularization Chapter 11. Europe Vernacularized 11.1. Literacy and Literature 11.2. Vernacular Anxiety 11.3. A New Cultural Politics Chapter 12. Comparative and Connective Vernacularization 12.1. European Particularism and Indian Difference 12.2. A Hard History of the Vernacular Millennium PART 3. THEORY AND PRACTICE OF CULTURE AND POWER Chapter 13. Actually Existing Theory and Its Discontents 13.1. Natural Histories of Culture-Power 13.2. Primordialism, Linguism, Ethnicity, and Other Unwarranted Generalizations 13.3. Legitimation, Ideology, and Related Functionalisms Chapter 14. Indigenism and Other Culture-Power Concepts of Modernity 14.1. Civilizationalism, or Indigenism with Too Little History 14.2. Nationalism, or Indigenism with Too Much History Epilogue. From Cosmopolitan-or-Vernacular to Cosmopolitan-and-Vernacular Appendix A A.1 Bhoja's Theory of Literary Language (from the Srngaraprakasa) A. 2 Bhoja's Theory of Ornamentation (from the Sarasvatikanthabharana) A.3 Sripala's Bilpank Prasasti of King Jayasimha Siddharaja A.4 The Origins of Hemacandra's Grammar (from Prabhacandra's Prabhavakacarita) A.5 The Invention of Kavya (from Rjaekhara's Kavyamimamsa) Appendix B B.1 Approximate Dates of Principal Dynasties B.2 Names of Important Peoples and Places with Their Approximate Modern Equivalents or Locations Publication History Bibliography Index