This book aims in the first place to examine the tradition of foreign trade in the Bay of Bengal and the social responsibility of businessmen. It explores how overseas trade was organised and the merchant associations functioned in the region. The second objective is to probe into the historical roots of globalisation, the extent to which India (the Bay of Bengal) has been incorporated in the global system and the progress made in the development path with the element of reciprocity in this process. It argues that the Bay of Bengal did not remain external to the modern world system, against the theory of Immanuel Wallerstein. The study finds that globalisation shaped the Bay of Bengal like any other trading zone. Some important questions that have been raised and answered are: Did the Bay of Bengal have a role to play in globalisation to resolve the needs of the people of India? Did such a thing really happen, and if not, what were the reasons? The book also attempts to study the distinctive features of globalisation like the emergence of new markets, new rules, new tools and new actors in the trade of the Bay of Bengal between 1500 and 1800, besides analysing the role of the state in protecting maritime trade from the unfair means of the foreigners.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR S. Jeyaseela Stephen
S. Jeyseela Stephen is professor of maritime History and Coordinator of the special Assistance programme of the UGC at Visva-Bharti. He joined the academy of historians in 1994 at Ecole francaise extreme-orient and went to pune to became Senior Advisor to Tata Central Archives in 2000. He became Head of the Department of History in 2001 at Visva-Bharti University, Santiniketan. He was the editor of revue Historique: Societe de 1st Histoire de Pondichery (1995-97). He had taught at the University of Nebraska, USA in 2004. He is a Member of the Executive Committee in the Indian Historical records Commission nominated by the Government of India. (220-07). Among his many publications are: The Coromandel Coast and its Hinterland: Economy, Society and political System, 1500-1600 (1997), Portuguese in the Rtamil Coast: Historical Explorations in Commerce and Culture, 1507-1749 (1998), Rangappa Thiruvengadam Pillai Naatkurippu, Vol. I (1760-1768) Vol. II, 1762-66, (2000), The Diary of Rangappa Thiruvengadam Pillai, 1760-68: Trnslated from Original Tamil with Notes (2001), Portuguese-Tamil Grammar: Modernisation and Democratisation of Tamil (2001) and Letters of the Portuguese Jesuits from Tamil countryside, 1666-68, (2001). He has also co-edited (with K.S. Mathew) Indo-French Relations, (1999). ) and edited Trade and Globalisation: Europeans, Americans and Indians in the Bay of Bengal, 1511-1819 (2003). He won the best book prize for his book Muthu Vijaya Thiruvengadam Pillai Naatkurippu, 1794-1796, in 1999 (in Tamil which deals with Diary Writing in Tamil during the Eighteenth Century).
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