One of the misconceptions in studying the European factories of the Indian Ocean is to assume that they hugged the coasts. Arguably, this is a consequence of a wider maritime bias in the study of early modern Asia's economic history. Yet in several parts of South Asia, in
In 1789 the Spanish political economist and merchant Tomás Antonio de Marien y Arróspide published an enormously ambitious treatise cataloging the world’s currencies (Marien y Arróspide, Tratado general de monedas). Over previous decades Marien had acquired some experience trading in the Atlantic world (Goenaga, “Tomás de Marien y Arróspide”
For better or worse, a small set of usual suspects dominate existing accounts of Asian merchant activity in early modern port cities in the Indian Ocean. This is in large measure a reflection of the limitations of existing source material. Because pre-1800 Asian commercial records are sparse for many corners
27 April 2023, Florence: Speaker: Tirthankar Roy (London School of Economics) Time and place: 27 April 2023, 17.00 CEST, Hybrid (Villa Salviati, Sala del Consiglio, and via Zoom) The talk confronts an anomaly in the history of European colonialism in Asia and Africa, namely that prior to the eighteenth