The long-term historical demography of India is a highly intractable subject, due to a lack of re... more The long-term historical demography of India is a highly intractable subject, due to a lack of reliable statistical data. Nevertheless, in recent decades, it has become increasingly common in popular and journalistic circles (including Le Figaro and The New York Times) to resort to the term 'genocide' in order to claim that a very large number of people were systematically killed in the process of the Islamic conquest of the area (c. 1000-1800 CE). This short essay examines the fragile basis of this claim, as well as the ideological programs underlying it. Effectively, such an abuse cheapens the term and devalues historical situations when genocide really occurred, including the Shoah.
Chronologics: Periodisation in a Global Context, 2022
Concluding reflections and historiographical reflections in a volume on the broad question of per... more Concluding reflections and historiographical reflections in a volume on the broad question of periodisation, from a conference in Berlin.
There has been a recent surge of publications in "global history", including on the med... more There has been a recent surge of publications in "global history", including on the medieval and early modern periods. While many of these are worthy pieces of research, some of them are what can only be termed "fake global history", driven by irresponsible sensationalism and the crude exigencies of the market. Here we look at a particular example of this, Yale professor Alan Mikhail's God's Shadow. Ostensibly about the global impact of the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim (r. 1512-20), this work fails every test of scholarly soundness. Yet, it is being acclaimed by the media as a work of great significance. We look into what this means today for "global history" as a practice. Image Caption: Illustration from "Exposition on the Prophet Ezra", a manuscript Ottoman history by Felix da Costa (1687). Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
The essay reflects on the context of the publication and reception of The Portuguese Empire in As... more The essay reflects on the context of the publication and reception of The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500-1700, a book that first appeared in 1993, and was translated into Portuguese, French and Chinese. It suggests that while some of the principal arguments of the book have gained acceptance, others have been resisted in many quarters. Notably, the book's plea to insert Portuguese activities in their full Asian and East African historical and historiographical contexts has only been espoused by a minority of historians.
Vasco da Gama and the Linking of Europe and Asia, 2000
The essay, jointly authored by Maurice Kriegel and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, explores historical and l... more The essay, jointly authored by Maurice Kriegel and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, explores historical and legendary aspects of the role of the Jewish astronomer Abraham Zacuto, in relation to the voyage of Vasco da Gama. It does so by jointly reading sources in Portuguese, Spanish and Hebrew.
This article examines the materials around François le Gouz de la Boullaye, a French gentilhomme ... more This article examines the materials around François le Gouz de la Boullaye, a French gentilhomme (gentleman or minor aristocrat) from the Anjou Province of western France, who visited India twice, once in the late 1640s, and again in the mid-1660s. The result of his first visit, in which he mostly spent time in Surat and Goa, was an extended travel-narrative, the Voyages et Observations, of which two editions appeared in 1653 and 1657. On this basis, Boullaye became a fairly well-known 'expert' on Islamic and Indian affairs in Louis XIV's France. Because of his reputation, he was then chosen as a member of an embassy sent to open trading relations with Safavid Iran and Mughal India in 1664 on behalf of the French Compagnie des Indes. This second visit was not a great success on account of misconceptions regarding diplomatic protocols and because of deep rivalries and divisions amongst rival French actors, including celebrated travellers like Bernier and Tavernier.
The essay examines several texts from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, dealing with inte... more The essay examines several texts from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, dealing with interfaith relations in Mughal India. The principal author we consider is the Khatri courtier and intellectual Anand Ram 'Mukhlis'.
An interview with Carlo Ginzburg, which appeared in the Hindu in November 2007. It is no longer e... more An interview with Carlo Ginzburg, which appeared in the Hindu in November 2007. It is no longer easily available on the newspaper's website.
A personal recollection of the life and intellectual influence of the British historian of coloni... more A personal recollection of the life and intellectual influence of the British historian of colonial south India, David Washbrook.
The essay examines a work by the Jesuit Jeronimo Xavier in Persian, the Adab al-Saltanat, produce... more The essay examines a work by the Jesuit Jeronimo Xavier in Persian, the Adab al-Saltanat, produced together with Maulana 'Abdus Sattar ibn Qasim Lahori, for the Mughal emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-27). It analyses the construction of this text, including the possible influence on it of Machiavellian political thought.
In 1648, the Portuguese Estado da Índia found itself at a crossroads. After nearly five decades o... more In 1648, the Portuguese Estado da Índia found itself at a crossroads. After nearly five decades of attacks by a variety of adversaries-the Dutch East India Company, the Safavids, the Mughals, the Tokugawa shoguns, and the rulers of Kandy, among others-and in the context of the 'Restoration' of the Braganza dynasty in Portugal in 1640 and the separation of Portugal from Spain, a brief respite was offered. This article looks at how the situation was diagnosed by various contemporary authors, both outsiders and consummate insiders, such as the viceroy Dom Filipe de Mascarenhas. It suggests that the heavy constraints placed on the state by external forces as well as by forces of internal dissension compelled it to reinvent itself, a process that eventually began in the 1660s. However, this reinvention was not about simply imitating its great rival, the Dutch East India Company.
South Indian Horizons (F. Gros Felicitation Volume), 2004
A commentary and translation of the rajaniti section of the Amuktamalyada of Krishnadevaraya (r. ... more A commentary and translation of the rajaniti section of the Amuktamalyada of Krishnadevaraya (r. 1509-29), ruler of Vijayanagara. Co-authored with Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman.
The paper considers Portuguese dealings with Thatta and the Sind region between 1515 and the 1630... more The paper considers Portuguese dealings with Thatta and the Sind region between 1515 and the 1630s, focusing above all on commercial and military aspects.
Gayet açık ki Alan Mikhail sadece yöneticilerin ve seçkin kahramanların 'tarihi yaptığını' varsay... more Gayet açık ki Alan Mikhail sadece yöneticilerin ve seçkin kahramanların 'tarihi yaptığını' varsayan modası geçmiş bir 'büyük adam' tarihçiliğini çok kaba bir şekilde hâlâ uyguluyor. Böylece kahramanı Sultan Selim’i 16. yüzyılın ana aktörlerinden olan ve eylemleriyle 'dünyayı değiştiren' Kolomb, Martin Luther ve Niccolò Machiavelli ile karşılaştırıyor.
Turkish translation: How to write fake global history
A critical examination of "fake global history", focusing in particular on the sensationalist boo... more A critical examination of "fake global history", focusing in particular on the sensationalist book by Alan Mikhail, God's Shadow.
Essay from 1988, discussing the situation of Portuguese Melaka in the 1620s on the basis of archi... more Essay from 1988, discussing the situation of Portuguese Melaka in the 1620s on the basis of archival documents of the period.
The long-term historical demography of India is a highly intractable subject, due to a lack of re... more The long-term historical demography of India is a highly intractable subject, due to a lack of reliable statistical data. Nevertheless, in recent decades, it has become increasingly common in popular and journalistic circles (including Le Figaro and The New York Times) to resort to the term 'genocide' in order to claim that a very large number of people were systematically killed in the process of the Islamic conquest of the area (c. 1000-1800 CE). This short essay examines the fragile basis of this claim, as well as the ideological programs underlying it. Effectively, such an abuse cheapens the term and devalues historical situations when genocide really occurred, including the Shoah.
Chronologics: Periodisation in a Global Context, 2022
Concluding reflections and historiographical reflections in a volume on the broad question of per... more Concluding reflections and historiographical reflections in a volume on the broad question of periodisation, from a conference in Berlin.
There has been a recent surge of publications in "global history", including on the med... more There has been a recent surge of publications in "global history", including on the medieval and early modern periods. While many of these are worthy pieces of research, some of them are what can only be termed "fake global history", driven by irresponsible sensationalism and the crude exigencies of the market. Here we look at a particular example of this, Yale professor Alan Mikhail's God's Shadow. Ostensibly about the global impact of the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim (r. 1512-20), this work fails every test of scholarly soundness. Yet, it is being acclaimed by the media as a work of great significance. We look into what this means today for "global history" as a practice. Image Caption: Illustration from "Exposition on the Prophet Ezra", a manuscript Ottoman history by Felix da Costa (1687). Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
The essay reflects on the context of the publication and reception of The Portuguese Empire in As... more The essay reflects on the context of the publication and reception of The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500-1700, a book that first appeared in 1993, and was translated into Portuguese, French and Chinese. It suggests that while some of the principal arguments of the book have gained acceptance, others have been resisted in many quarters. Notably, the book's plea to insert Portuguese activities in their full Asian and East African historical and historiographical contexts has only been espoused by a minority of historians.
Vasco da Gama and the Linking of Europe and Asia, 2000
The essay, jointly authored by Maurice Kriegel and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, explores historical and l... more The essay, jointly authored by Maurice Kriegel and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, explores historical and legendary aspects of the role of the Jewish astronomer Abraham Zacuto, in relation to the voyage of Vasco da Gama. It does so by jointly reading sources in Portuguese, Spanish and Hebrew.
This article examines the materials around François le Gouz de la Boullaye, a French gentilhomme ... more This article examines the materials around François le Gouz de la Boullaye, a French gentilhomme (gentleman or minor aristocrat) from the Anjou Province of western France, who visited India twice, once in the late 1640s, and again in the mid-1660s. The result of his first visit, in which he mostly spent time in Surat and Goa, was an extended travel-narrative, the Voyages et Observations, of which two editions appeared in 1653 and 1657. On this basis, Boullaye became a fairly well-known 'expert' on Islamic and Indian affairs in Louis XIV's France. Because of his reputation, he was then chosen as a member of an embassy sent to open trading relations with Safavid Iran and Mughal India in 1664 on behalf of the French Compagnie des Indes. This second visit was not a great success on account of misconceptions regarding diplomatic protocols and because of deep rivalries and divisions amongst rival French actors, including celebrated travellers like Bernier and Tavernier.
The essay examines several texts from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, dealing with inte... more The essay examines several texts from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, dealing with interfaith relations in Mughal India. The principal author we consider is the Khatri courtier and intellectual Anand Ram 'Mukhlis'.
An interview with Carlo Ginzburg, which appeared in the Hindu in November 2007. It is no longer e... more An interview with Carlo Ginzburg, which appeared in the Hindu in November 2007. It is no longer easily available on the newspaper's website.
A personal recollection of the life and intellectual influence of the British historian of coloni... more A personal recollection of the life and intellectual influence of the British historian of colonial south India, David Washbrook.
The essay examines a work by the Jesuit Jeronimo Xavier in Persian, the Adab al-Saltanat, produce... more The essay examines a work by the Jesuit Jeronimo Xavier in Persian, the Adab al-Saltanat, produced together with Maulana 'Abdus Sattar ibn Qasim Lahori, for the Mughal emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-27). It analyses the construction of this text, including the possible influence on it of Machiavellian political thought.
In 1648, the Portuguese Estado da Índia found itself at a crossroads. After nearly five decades o... more In 1648, the Portuguese Estado da Índia found itself at a crossroads. After nearly five decades of attacks by a variety of adversaries-the Dutch East India Company, the Safavids, the Mughals, the Tokugawa shoguns, and the rulers of Kandy, among others-and in the context of the 'Restoration' of the Braganza dynasty in Portugal in 1640 and the separation of Portugal from Spain, a brief respite was offered. This article looks at how the situation was diagnosed by various contemporary authors, both outsiders and consummate insiders, such as the viceroy Dom Filipe de Mascarenhas. It suggests that the heavy constraints placed on the state by external forces as well as by forces of internal dissension compelled it to reinvent itself, a process that eventually began in the 1660s. However, this reinvention was not about simply imitating its great rival, the Dutch East India Company.
South Indian Horizons (F. Gros Felicitation Volume), 2004
A commentary and translation of the rajaniti section of the Amuktamalyada of Krishnadevaraya (r. ... more A commentary and translation of the rajaniti section of the Amuktamalyada of Krishnadevaraya (r. 1509-29), ruler of Vijayanagara. Co-authored with Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman.
The paper considers Portuguese dealings with Thatta and the Sind region between 1515 and the 1630... more The paper considers Portuguese dealings with Thatta and the Sind region between 1515 and the 1630s, focusing above all on commercial and military aspects.
Gayet açık ki Alan Mikhail sadece yöneticilerin ve seçkin kahramanların 'tarihi yaptığını' varsay... more Gayet açık ki Alan Mikhail sadece yöneticilerin ve seçkin kahramanların 'tarihi yaptığını' varsayan modası geçmiş bir 'büyük adam' tarihçiliğini çok kaba bir şekilde hâlâ uyguluyor. Böylece kahramanı Sultan Selim’i 16. yüzyılın ana aktörlerinden olan ve eylemleriyle 'dünyayı değiştiren' Kolomb, Martin Luther ve Niccolò Machiavelli ile karşılaştırıyor.
Turkish translation: How to write fake global history
A critical examination of "fake global history", focusing in particular on the sensationalist boo... more A critical examination of "fake global history", focusing in particular on the sensationalist book by Alan Mikhail, God's Shadow.
Essay from 1988, discussing the situation of Portuguese Melaka in the 1620s on the basis of archi... more Essay from 1988, discussing the situation of Portuguese Melaka in the 1620s on the basis of archival documents of the period.
This volume provides the first survey of the unexplored connections between Machiavelli’s work an... more This volume provides the first survey of the unexplored connections between Machiavelli’s work and the Islamic world, running from the Arabic roots of The Prince to its first translations into Ottoman Turkish and Arabic. It investigates comparative descriptions of non-European peoples, Renaissance representations of Muḥammad and the Ottoman military discipline, a Jesuit treatise in Persian for a Mughal emperor, peculiar readers from Brazil to India, and the parallel lives of Machiavelli and the bureaucrat Celālzāde Muṣṭafá. Ten distinguished scholars analyse the backgrounds, circulation and reception of Machiavelli’s writings, focusing on many aspects of the mutual exchange of political theories and grammars between East and West. A significant contribution to attempts by current scholarship to challenge any rigid separation within Eurasia, this volume restores a sense of the global spreading of books, ideas and men in the past.
1 Introduction: Re-Orienting Machiavelli Lucio Biasiori and Giuseppe Marcocci
Part One – From Readings to Readers
2 Islamic Roots of Machiavelli’s Thought? The Prince and the Kitāb sirr al-asrār from Baghdad to Florence and Back Lucio Biasiori
3 Turkophilia and Religion: Machiavelli, Giovio and the Sixteenth-Century Debate about War Vincenzo Lavenia
4 Machiavelli and the Antiquarians Carlo Ginzburg
Part Two – Religion and Empires
5 Roman Prophet or Muslim Caesar: Muḥammad the Lawgiver before and after Machiavelli Pier Mattia Tommasino
6 Mediterranean Exemplars: Jesuit Political Lessons for a Mughal Emperor Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam
7 Machiavelli and the Islamic Empire: Tropical Readers from Brazil to India (Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries) Giuseppe Marcocci
Part Three – Beyond Orientalism
8 A Tale of Two Chancellors: Machiavelli, Celālzāde Muṣṭafā, and Connected Political Cultures in the Cinquecento/the Hijri Tenth Century Kaya Şahin
9 Machiavelli Enters the Sublime Porte: The Introduction of The Prince to the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman World Nergiz Yılmaz Aydoğdu
10 Translating Machiavelli in Egypt: The Prince and the Shaping of a New Political Vocabulary in the Nineteenth-Century Arab Mediterranean Elisabetta Benigni
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Papers by Sanjay Subrahmanyam
Turkish translation: How to write fake global history
Turkish translation: How to write fake global history
1 Introduction: Re-Orienting Machiavelli
Lucio Biasiori and Giuseppe Marcocci
Part One – From Readings to Readers
2 Islamic Roots of Machiavelli’s Thought? The Prince and the Kitāb sirr al-asrār from Baghdad to Florence and Back
Lucio Biasiori
3 Turkophilia and Religion: Machiavelli, Giovio and the Sixteenth-Century Debate about War
Vincenzo Lavenia
4 Machiavelli and the Antiquarians
Carlo Ginzburg
Part Two – Religion and Empires
5 Roman Prophet or Muslim Caesar: Muḥammad the Lawgiver before and after Machiavelli
Pier Mattia Tommasino
6 Mediterranean Exemplars: Jesuit Political Lessons for a Mughal Emperor
Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam
7 Machiavelli and the Islamic Empire: Tropical Readers from Brazil to India (Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries)
Giuseppe Marcocci
Part Three – Beyond Orientalism
8 A Tale of Two Chancellors: Machiavelli, Celālzāde Muṣṭafā, and Connected Political Cultures in the Cinquecento/the Hijri Tenth Century
Kaya Şahin
9 Machiavelli Enters the Sublime Porte: The Introduction of The Prince to the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman World
Nergiz Yılmaz Aydoğdu
10 Translating Machiavelli in Egypt: The Prince and the Shaping of a New Political Vocabulary in the Nineteenth-Century Arab Mediterranean
Elisabetta Benigni