Abstract
The political crisis faced by contestants for the leadership of the Afghan political community was not simply a consequence of the interventions, or rather inventions of British colonial knowledge. Rather, it was driven as much by changes resha** the Afghan, as well as global economic landscape at the time. By the end of the eighteenth century, the once great Muslim land empires of Central and South Asia had fallen and the caravan trade connecting them had largely collapsed. In their place, formerly marginal European traders stepped into the breach, establishing the economic foundations of colonial rule. This dynamic and massive shift in the channels of international trade, and the concurrent rise and fall of imperial fortunes, has long attracted scholarly attention. While most of that attention has focused on the better-documented rise of the European maritime empires, their later successes cannot be understood apart from the earlier fall of the Muslim ‘gunpowder empires’ and the marginalization of their successors.1 The processes were intimately linked.2
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Notes
See, for example, K.N. Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia and the East India Company (1978)
N. Steensgaard, The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century: The East India Companies and the Decline of the Caravan Trade (1974). For a good summary of debates surrounding the decline of the so-called ‘gunpowder empires’ see Rohan D’Souza, ‘Crisis before the Fall: Some Speculations on the Decline of the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals’, Social Scientist.
Important exceptions to this include Jos Gommans, The Rise of the Indo-Afghan Empire (1999)
Scott Levi, The Indian Trade Diaspora in Central Asia and Its Trade, 1550–1900 (2002).
For a picture of overland trade networks and routes, see Scott Levi, ‘India, Russia and the Eighteenth Century Transformation of the Central Asian Caravan Trade’, Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient; Claude Markovits, The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–1947: Traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama (2000)
S.F. Dale, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600–1750 (1994).
See Yuri V. Gankovsky, ‘The Durrani Empire: Taxes and Tax System,’ in Afghanistan: Past and Present (1981).
See, for instance, Fernand Braudel, Capitalism and Material Life, 1400–1800 (1973).
See, for example, Andre Gunder Frank, Reorient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (1998)
Immanuel Wallerstien, The Modern World-System (1974)
C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914 (2004).
See generally P.M. Holt, The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1881–1898: A Study of Its Origins, Development and Overthrow (1979).
See C.A. Bayly, ‘The British Military-Fiscal State and Indigenous Resistance: India 1750–1820’, in The Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689 to 1815 (1994)
Douglas Peers, Between Mars and Mammon: Colonial Armies and the Garrison State in Early Nineteenth-Century India (1995), 106–43, 184–242.
David Washbrook, ‘South Asia, the World System, and World Capitalism’, in South Asia and World Capitalism (1990), 72–3.
C.A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: Northern Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770–1870 (2003), 263–302.
C.A. Bayly, ‘Age of Hiatus: The North Indian Economy and Society, 1830–50’, in Indian Society and the Beginnings of Modernization (1976), 95.
Thomas A. Timberg, ‘Hiatus and Incubator: Indigenous Trade and Traders, 1837–1857’, in Trade and Finance in Colonial India, 1750–1860 (1995), 252, 62.
S.F. Dale, ‘Indo-Russian Trade in the 18th Century’, in South Asia and World Capitalism (1990), 149
Claude Markovits, The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–1947: Traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama (2000), 38.
See generally Scott Levi, The Indian Trade Diaspora in Central Asia and Its Trade 1550–1900 (2002).
S.F. Dale, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600–1750 (1994), 59–60
See also G.D. Sharma, ‘The Marwaris: Economic Foundations of an Indian Capitalist Community’, in Business Communities of India: A Historical Perspective (1984)
Thomas Timberg, The Marwaris: From Traders to Industrialists (1978)
J.S. Grewal, ‘Business Communities of Punjab’, in Business Communities of India: A Historical Perspective (1984)
Bhagat Singh, ‘Trade and Commerce under Maharaja Ranjit Singh’, in Maharaja Ranjit Singh: Politics, Society and Economy (1984).
S.F. Dale, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600–1750 (1994), 63.
Mohan Lal, Travels in the Panjab, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan to Balk, Bokhara, and Herat; and a Visit to Great Britain and Germany (1846), 438.
Mountstuart Elphinstone, An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, Vol. 1 (1991; reprint, 1838), 420–1
A. Burnes, Travels into Bokhara; Together with a Narrative of a Voyage on the Indus (2003; reprint, 1834), 69.
Arthur Conolly, Journey to the North of India, over the Land from England through Russia, Persia and Afghanistan, Vol. 2 (1834), 168–9.
S.F. Dale, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600–1750 (1994), 46.
Scott Levi, The Indian Trade Diaspora in Central Asia and Its Trade 1550–1900 (2002), 177.
Claude Markovits, The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–1947: Traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama (2000), 61.
Mohan Lal, Travels in the Panjab, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan to Balk, Bokhara, and Herat; and a Visit to Great Britain and Germany (1846), 76–7.
S.F. Dale, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600–1750 (1994), 52–3, 62.
S.F. Dale, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600–1750 (1994), 64.
Claude Markovits, The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–1947: Traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama (2000), 66–7.
See generally C.A. Bayly, ‘“Archaic” And “Modern” Globalization in the Eurasian and African Arena, Ca. 1750–1850’, in Globalization in World History (2002)
C.A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780–1830 (1989)
C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914 (2004), 23–120.
See, for instance, Andre Gunder Frank, Reorient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (1998)
Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy (2000).
See, for example, C.A. Bayly, ‘Age of Hiatus: The North Indian Economy and Society, 1830–50’, in Indian Society and the Beginnings of Modernization (1976).
K.N. Chaudhuri, ‘India’s Foreign Trade and the Cessation of the East India Company’s Trading Activities, 1828–40’, in Trade and Finance in Colonial India (1995), 312–14.
Scott Levi, The Indian Trade Diaspora in Central Asia and Its Trade 1550–1900 (2002), 242.
M.N. Pearson, ‘Asia and World Precious Metal Flows in the Early Modern Period’, in Evolution of the World Economy, Precious Metals and India (2001), 42.
D.A. Brading, ‘Mexican Silver-Mining in the Eighteenth Century: The Revival of Zacatecas’, The Hispanic American Historical Review (1970), 665–6, 668.
Ward Barrett, ‘World Bullion Flows, 1450–1800’, in The Rise of Merchant Empires: Long-Distance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350–1750 (1990), 245.
Ward Barrett, ‘World Bullion Flows, 1450–1800’, in The Rise of Merchant Empires: Long-Distance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350–1750 (1990), 251.
P. Kuhn, Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 (1990), 37–8.
See generally Hans Christian Johansen, Ship** and Trade between the Baltic Area and Western Europe 1784–95 (1983).
Carl Hermann Scheidler, A Journey from Orenburg to Bokhara in the Year 1820 (1870), 2
Scott Levi, The Indian Trade Diaspora in Central Asia and Its Trade 1550–1900 (2002), 241.
Anne Lincoln Fitzpatrick, The Great Russian Fair: Nizhnii Novgorod, 1840–90 (1990), 82–5.
C.A. Bayly, ‘“Archaic” And “Modern” Globalization in the Eurasian and African Arena, Ca. 1750–1850’, in Globalization in World History (2002), 60.
A.K.S. Lambton, ‘Persian Trade under the Early Qajars’, in Islam and the Trade of Asia (1970), 236.
Mohan Lal, Travels in the Panjab, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan to Balk, Bokhara, and Herat; and a Visit to Great Britain and Germany (1846), 107.
S.F. Dale, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600–1750 (1994), 28.
For a discussion of the importance of sumptuary patters, see C.A. Bayly and Susan Bayly, ‘Eighteenth Century State Forms and the Economy’, in Arrested Development in India: The Historical Dimension (1988).
On the politics of consumption, see generally Arjun Appadurai, ‘Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value’, in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (1986).
On the role of consumption in colonial societies, see, for example, Jean Comaroff, ‘The Empire’s Old Clothes: Fashioning the Colonial Subject’, in Cross-Cultural Consumption: Global Markets, Local Realities (1996).
C.A. Bayly, ‘“Archaic” and “Modern” Globalization in the Eurasian and African Arena, Ca. 1750–1850’, in Globalization in World History (2002), 52.
Dietmar Rothermund, ‘Problems of India’s Arrested Economic Growth under British Rule’, in Arrested Development in India: The Historical Dimension (1988), 5.
S.F. Dale, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600–1750 (1994), 22
Thomas A. Timberg, ‘Hiatus and Incubator: Indigenous Trade and Traders, 1837–1857’, in Trade and Finance in Colonial India, 1750–1860 (1995), 251–2.
Arthur Conolly, Journey to the North of India, over the Land from England through Russia, Persia and Afghanistan, Vol. 2 (1834), 227–8.
On thugs and dacoits of this era, see Kim Wagner, Thuggee: Banditry and the British in Early Nineteenth Century India (2007).
Claude Markovits, The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–1947: Traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama (2000), 14.
Gail Minault, ‘The Emperor’s Old Clothes: Robing and Sovereignty in Late Mughal and Early British India’, in Robes of Honour: Khil’at in Pre-Colonial and Colonial India (2003), 134.
Bernardo A. Michael, ‘When Soldiers and Statesmen Meet: ‘Ethnographic Moments’ on the Frontiers of Empire, 1800–1815,’ in Khil’at in Pre-Colonial and Colonial India (2003), 89–90.
R.D. Choksey, Mountstuart Elphinstone: The Indian Years, 1795–1827 (1971), 113.
See generally Steward Gordon, ed., Robes and Honour: Khil’at in Pre-Colonial India and Colonial India (2003).
Ibid.; C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914 (2004), 105.
For a discussion of this trade, see Janet Rizvi, Transhimalayan Caravans: Merchant Princes and Peasant Traders in Ladakh (2001), 59–60.
Mohan Lal, Travels in the Panjab, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan to Balk, Bokhara, and Herat; and a Visit to Great Britain and Germany (1846), 277.
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© 2008 B. D. Hopkins
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Hopkins, B.D. (2008). Camels, Caravans and Corridor Cities. In: The Making of Modern Afghanistan. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230228764_6
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