India and Europe in the global eighteenth century

The long eighteenth century was a period of major transformation for Europe and India as imperialism heralded a new global order. Eschewing the reductive perspectives of nation-state histories and postcolonial ‘east vs west’ oppositions, contributors to India and Europe in the global eighteenth century put forward a more nuanced and interdisciplinary analysis. Using eastern as well as western sources, authors present fresh insights into European and Indian relations and highlight: • how anxieties over war and piracy shaped commercial activity; • how French, British and Persian histories of India reveal the different geo-political issues at stake; • the material legacy of India in European cultural life; • how novels parodied popular views of the Orient and provided counter-narratives to images of India as the site of corruption; • how social transformations, traditionally characterised as ‘Mughal decline’, in effect forged new global connections that informed political culture into the nineteenth century. Daniel Sanjiv Roberts, Introduction Anthony Strugnell, A view from afar: India in Raynal’s Histoire des deux Indes Claire Gallien, British orientalism, Indo-Persian historiography and the politics of global knowledge Javed Majeed, Globalising the Goths: ‘The siren shores of Oriental literature’ in John Richardson’s A Dictionary of Persian, Arabic, and English (1777-1780) Deirdre Coleman, ‘Voyage of conception’: John Keats and India Sonja Lawrenson, ‘The country chosen of my heart’: the comic cosmopolitanism of The Orientalist, or, electioneering in Ireland, a tale, by myself Daniel Sanjiv Roberts, Orientalism and ‘textual attitude’: Bernier’s appropriation by Southey and Owenson Felicia Gottmann, Intellectual history as global history: Voltaire’s Fragments sur l’Inde and the problem of enlightened commerce James Watt, Fictions of commercial empire, 1774-1782 Gabriel Sánchez Espinosa, The Spanish translation of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's La Chaumière indienne: its fortunes and significance in a country divided by ideology, politics and war John McAleer, Displaying its wares: material culture, the East India Company and British encounters with India in the long eighteenth century Mogens R. Nissen, The Danish Asiatic Company: colonial expansion and commercial interests Lakshmi Subramanian, Whose pirate? Reflections on state power and predation on India’s western littoral Florence D’Souza, A comparative study of English and French views of pre-colonial Surat Seema Alavi, The Mughal decline and the emergence of new global connections in early modern India Summaries List of contributors Bibliography Index