The Dutch Factories in India 1624-1627: A Collection of Dutch East India Company Documents Pertaining to India Vol. II (1624-1627)

DETAILS : 

• Author : Professor Om Prakash
  
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Manohar Publishers and Distributors
  
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ 1 January 2007
  
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
  
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
  
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 8121501164
  
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-8121501163
  
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 700  g

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Dutch Factories in India 1624–1627: A Collection of Dutch East India Company Documents Pertaining to India Vol. II, edited and translated by the globally acclaimed economic historian Professor Om Prakash, is an exceptional archive of primary source literature. Published by Manohar Publishers & Distributors, this massive, 413-page annotated scholarly compendium stands as the second landmark installment in a multi-volume research project. The core philosophy of this text is to bridge a critical linguistic and paleographic gap in South Asian historiography. By carefully translating and annotating the heavily guarded records of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC or Dutch East India Company), the text unlocks a treasure trove of raw seventeenth-century data for non-Dutch speaking researchers, shattering traditional colonial assumptions about pre-modern Asian trade networks.

The structural framework of Volume II isolates a volatile four-year window that witnessed the intense militarization and commercial consolidation of European trading monopolies along the Indian littoral. The book is organized around highly meticulous transcriptions of original letters, official logs, confidential invoices, and strategic reports flowing directly between VOC regional outposts, the central headquarters at Batavia (Jakarta), and the directorate in the Netherlands. Rather than tracking only the Company’s textile and spice transactions, these primary sources contain an astounding depth of quantitative and qualitative data on regional geopolitics, the impact of local Mughal and Deccani rulers, and inter-imperial conflicts with the Portuguese and English. Furthermore, it exposes the immense networks of wealthy Indian merchant elites who consistently matched or outperformed European capital. With its exact price registries and ship manifest lists, this volume provides a vital window into the economic history of pre-colonial India.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Professor Om Prakash (1939–2024) was an elite Indian economic historian, academician, and a leading international authority on early modern Indian Ocean commerce. A senior professor at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, his contributions to global history earned him prestigious fellowships at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam and the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences in Haarlem.

Professor Prakash’s editorial and translational methodology is famously exact, rigorous, and highly objective. He avoids imposing anachronistic theories on historical events, choosing instead to contextualize archival entries through extensive, precise analytical footnotes. His profound bibliography—which features definitive masterpieces like The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal and European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-Colonial India—cemented his legacy as the premier scholar responsible for integrating Dutch maritime archives into mainstream Indian historical studies.