000			03110cam a22003497i 4500
999			_c26865 _d26865
003			CUTN
005			20201119113852.0
008			160202s2016 ii ab b 001 0 eng d
020			_a9780199460854
020			_a019946085X
041			_aEnglish
082	0	4	_a382.093 _223 _bRAJ
100	0		_aRajan, Gurukkal
245	1	0	_aRethinking classical Indo-Roman trade : _bpolitical economy of eastern Mediterranean exchange relations / _cRajan Gurukkal.
250			_aFirst edition.
260			_aNew Delhi, India : _bOxford University Press, _c2016.
300			_axiii, 330 pages : _b1 illustration (black and white), maps (black and white) ; _c23 cm
505			_t1. Introduction: Theoretical Preliminaries and methodology _t2. Sources and Historiography _t3. Eastern mediterranean overseas exchanges _t4. Ports, marts, and ship technology in early south India _t5. Exhange relations in early peninsular India _t6. Polity, statecraft, and overseas exchange _t7. Afterword
520			_aThe book is a critical rethinking of the nature of the classical eastern Mediterranean exchange relations with the coasts of the Indian subcontinent. It examines in the light of the extant source material and theoretical insights whether the expression ‘Indo-Roman trade’ is tenable. Characterizing the nature of contemporary exchanges in detail, the book maintains that the expression ‘Indo-Roman trade’ is inappropriate. It starts off with the theoretical premise that the term ‘trade’, if applied uniformly to all kinds of transactions in time and place, will lead to many anachronistic correlations, causations, and generalizations about the nature of early forms of exchange. Contemporary Mediterranean exchange of goods from the eastern world was a combination of multiple forms of exchange in which trade was just one and confined to Rome. The management of this ensemble was a heavily collaborative, extensively networked, and document-based enterprise, with precise notions of weights, measures, rates of rent, interest, price and profit accounted in terms of money. It had necessitated a stratified society, aristocracy, state system, and the entailing political economy of demand for luxury goods from far-off lands. Considering that such institutional and social structures were absent in contemporaneous peninsular India, this book dismisses the claims in south Indian historiography that early Tamil chieftains conducted overseas commerce. Neither there existed adequate naval technology to allow merchant bodies to conduct independent overseas trade nor was it necessary.
650			_aCommerce.
650			_aDiplomatic relations
650			_aCommerce--Historiography
942			_2ddc _cBOOKS
100	0		_eauthor.
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references (pages 298-316) and index.
651		0	_aIndia _xCommerce _zRome.
651		0	_aRome _xCommerce _zIndia.
651		0	_aIndia _xCommerce _zMiddle East.
651		0	_aMiddle East _xCommerce _zIndia.
906			_a7 _bpar _ccopycat _d3 _encip _f20 _gy-gencatlg