Subversive Sovereigns Across the Seas Indian Ocean Ports of Trade From Early Historic Times to Lte Colonialism

DETAILS : 

• Author :  Kenneth R. Hall Rila Mukherjee Suchandra Ghosh
  
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ The Asiatic Society, Kolkata
  
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ 1 January 2017
  
• Language ‏ : ‎ Sanskrit
  
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 289 pages
  
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9381574707
  
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9381574706
  
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 600  g

ABOUT THE BOOK

Subversive Sovereigns Across the Seas: Indian Ocean Ports-of-Trade from Early Historic Times to Late Colonialism, jointly edited by the distinguished maritime and ancient historians Kenneth R. Hall, Rila Mukherjee, and Suchandra Ghosh, is a highly specialized academic compilation that redefines the maritime historiography of the Indo-Pacific rim. Published by the prestigious Asiatic Society (Kolkata), this 289-page hardback volume explores the socio-economic and political dynamics of coastal cities over several centuries. The core philosophy of this text is to challenge traditional, Eurocentric "longue durée" theories and romanticized myths of a uniform Asian trade network. Instead, it positions ports-of-trade as highly autonomous, volatile, and complex centers of power that actively negotiated, subverted, or integrated with expanding networks of global capitalism and colonial authority.

The textbook is structured as a collection of research essays that break new ground by shifting attention away from historically dominant maritime hubs toward marginalized coastal borderlands and maritime marches. Temporally spanning from the Early Historic period through the transition into late capitalism—with a particular focus on the post-1400 CE era—the volume traces an expansive geographic arc. It interrogates the distinct port urban experience across vastly diverse locales, including:

• The Persian Gulf: Investigating nodes like Bandar Abbas at the crossroads of overland caravan tracks and maritime sea lanes.
• The Bay of Bengal & South Asia: Tracking littoral connectivity, upstream-downstream exchanges, and local political boundaries.
• The Indo-Pacific Margins: Extending analytical boundaries to remote zones like Broome in Western Australia, detailing its integration into regional pearl and material networks.

By contrasting these fluid, multi-ethnic coastal spaces with their rigid inland counterparts, the book provides a different urban history of ports. It investigates how local harbor masters, autonomous merchants, and maritime communities maintained localized sovereignty while dealing with the demands of European trading companies and colonial state-building.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The volume brings together an elite editorial team of internationally recognized historians, each representing a core pillar of modern maritime and regional scholarship:

• Dr. Kenneth R. Hall: A renowned expert on Chola South India and early Southeast Asian history, whose extensive research focuses heavily on transnational religious networks, trade guilds, and upstream-downstream economic connectivities.
• Dr. Rila Mukherjee: An acclaimed spatial historian specializing in the Bay of Bengal. Her academic career is dedicated to analyzing water histories, Indian Ocean circulations, and shifting maritime boundaries.
• Dr. Suchandra Ghosh: A senior scholar of ancient and early medieval South Asia, celebrated for her exhaustive work on coastal India, the Oxus-Indus region, and epigraphic and numismatic sources.

The collective writing and editorial methodology of Hall, Mukherjee, and Ghosh is intensely empirical, multi-disciplinary, and highly analytical. They avoid sweeping generalizations about maritime trade, opting instead to preserve the specific time, place, and socio-political context of individual ports. Their shared efforts have resulted in a critical reference work that bridges spatial theory, archival documentation, and economic history for advanced research in Asian maritime studies.