Review of Claude Markowitz, India and the world: a history of connections, c. 1750-2000

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• dc.contributor.author Segura-Garcia, Teresa
• dc.date.accessioned 2025-11-05T11:26:38Z
• dc.date.available 2025-11-05T11:26:38Z
• dc.date.issued 2024
• dc.date.updated 2025-11-05T11:26:38Z
• dc.description.abstract Claude Markovits' India and the World: A History of Connections, c. 1750-2000 is a compelling, wide-ranging examination of India's global interactions over two centuries and a half. Across seven sweeping thematic chapters, Markovits explores India's past through its role in the three-fold global exchange of things (commodities, manufactured goods, cultural productions), people (voluntary migration, indentured labour, military conscription), and ideas (religion, political ideologies, the reception of historical events). The author's aim is to explore Indian history through a broader, connected history framework, drawing on methodologies most notably pioneered by Sanjay Subrahmanyam.1 The book positions India as an active participant in transoceanic networks sustained through multidirectional connections. As Markovits demonstrates, India influenced and was influenced by the world in a dynamic and reciprocal, if sometimes uneven, manner. The book's opening chronology provides an excellent indication of what is to come, in terms of the monograph's ambitious thematic scope. The chronology features standard political and military milestones, ranging from the Carnatic Wars of 1746-53 to the Kargil conflict of 1999. It also pinpoints, however, cultural moments, from the publication of William Jone's English translation of Kalidasa's play Shakuntala in 1789 to the box-office success of the Tamil masala film Muthu in Japan in 1998. The masterful balance between economic, political, social, and cultural history underscores the breadth of Markovits's scholarship, which enables him to situate India not just within the frameworks created by European colonialism but also in global landscapes. This broader scope breaks from the more conventional focus on India's imperial ties, demonstrating that India's global reach extended well beyond them. Markovits takes the reader on a tour from Japan, where the Sindwork merchants of Sindh's Hyderabad sold Japonaiserie trinkets to affluent North American customers in search of exotica, to Benin, where vodún followers incorporated images of Hindu gods imported by Indian traders into their religious practices. It is precisely in charting India's interactions with the non-imperial and the non-European - particularly the rest of Asia, Africa, and the Americas - that the book is most gripping and successful.
• dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
• dc.identifier.citation Segura-Garcia T. Review of Claude Markowitz, India and the world: a history of connections, c. 1750-2000. Asia Maior. 2024;35:461-65.
• dc.identifier.issn 2385-2526
• dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10230/71779
• dc.language.iso eng
• dc.publisher Viella srl
• dc.relation.ispartof Asia Maior. 2024;35:461-465
• dc.rights © Viella s.r.l. & Associazione Asia Maior. Every issue of Asia Maior and each individual article published in Asia Maior, with the relative illustrations, are published under a Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.
• dc.rights.accessRights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
• dc.rights.uri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
• dc.subject.other Índia -- Història
• dc.title Review of Claude Markowitz, India and the world: a history of connections, c. 1750-2000
• dc.type info:eu-repo/semantics/article