The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company
1660-1760

This book offers a comprehensive history of the English East India Company during the century 1660–1760.

K. N. Chaudhuri (Author)

9780521031592, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 23 November 2006

652 pages
22.8 x 15.4 x 3.7 cm, 0.968 kg

The main contribution of the work is to offer a comprehensive history of the English East India Company during the century 1660–1760. It also examines the commercial economy of the Asian countries in which the Company traded and its political relations with Asian princes. Finally, it is a study of business and economic decision-making under pre-modern conditions. The book is based on an extensive analysis of the quantitative and qualitative material available in the Company's archives. The data-processing of the quantitative evidence and its subsequent statistical analysis was carried out on a computer, and the book contains comprehensive tables on the volume and value of the Company's trade, prices of commercial goods, and on monetary and financial history. The extensive scope of the book and its consideration not only of the Company but of the economies in which it operated make it essential reading for all concerned with the economic history of the period, both of Europe and Asia. The techniques used in analysing the original data and their theoretical framework make it of methodological interest to economic historians.

Tables
Figures
Maps
Abbreviations
Notes on dates, contemporaneous spellings, currency and weights
Preface
Acknowledgements
1. The international economy and the East India trade
2. A formal theoretical model of the East India Company's trade
3. The structure of early trade and the pattern of commercial settlements in Asia
4. The evolution of the Company's trading system: operation and policy 1660–1760
5. Long-term trends and fluctuations 1660–1760
6. Politics of trade
7. Markets, merchants and the Company
8. The export of treasure and the monetary system
9. The structure of country trade in Asia
10. Export of European commodities
11. The Company and the Indian textile industry
12. The Company's trade in textiles
13. Pepper
14. Import of bulk goods
15. Raw silk
16. Coffee
17. Imports from China
18. Financial results
19. Conclusion
Appendix 1. Notes on the statistical tables of the East India Company's trade
Appendix 2. Time-series analysis of the East India Company's exports and imports
Appendix 3. The econometric estimation of the trading model
4. The grouped list and the glossary of Indian textile types
5. The statistical tables of the Company's trade
General glossary
Bibliography
Short titles cited in the reference notes
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: General & world history [HBG]