The Political Economy of Craft Production
Crafting Empire in South India, c.1350–1650

A study of the significance of craft production in the South Indian Vijayanagara empire.

Carla M. Sinopoli (Author)

9780521174169, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 3 March 2011

370 pages
24.4 x 17 x 2 cm, 0.59 kg

Review of the hardback: 'One of the most significant publications in the archaeology of South Asia to appear in the last decade … [Sinopoli] demonstrates that careful dialogue with indigenous understandings that are embodied in texts, as well as with the historians who privilege such sources, can contribute significantly to our collective knowledge of the products and producers of craft in India and in complex societies more generally.' South Asian Studies

The study of specialized craft production has a long tradition in archaeological research. Through analyses of material remains and the contexts of their production and use, archaeologists can examine the organization of craft production and the economic and political status of craft producers. This study combines archaeological and historical evidence from the author's twenty years of fieldwork at the imperial capital of Vijayanagara to explore the role and significance of craft production in the city's political economy of the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. By examining a diverse range of crafts from poetry to pottery, Sinopoli evaluates models of craft production and expands upon theoretical and historical understandings of empires in general and Vijayanagara in particular. It is the most broad-ranging study of craft production in South Asia, or in any other early state empire.

1. Introduction
2. Specialized craft production: archaeological approaches
3. The South Asian state
4. Vijayanagara: the historical setting
5. Vijayanagara: sources of evidence
6. Craft products and craft producers
7. Artisans and institutions: artisans and each other
8. Crafting empire: conclusion.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Archaeology by period / region [HDD], Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], Asian history [HBJF]