Industrialization in India: Growth and Conflict in the Private Corporate Sector, 1914–47. By Rajat K. Ray. New York, Oxford University Press, 1979. Pp. xi + 384. $15.95
Industrialization in India: Growth and Conflict in the Private Corporate Sector, 1914–47. By Rajat K. Ray. New York, Oxford University Press, 1979. Pp. xi + 384. $15.95
复制标题
印度的工业化：私营企业部门的增长和冲突，1914-47 年，Rajat K. Ray，纽约，牛津大学出版社，1979 年，第 xi + 384 页。15.95 美元。
DOI：
10.2307/3114267
复制
发表时间：
1980
影响因子：
1.2
通讯作者：
John Adams
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
John Adams
苏拉特后来的衰落被归因于各种各样的，或多或少是偶然的原因，达斯·古普塔调查的主要结果之一是，我们现在能够在18世纪印度经济和政治历史的背景下看到这种衰落。他令人信服地论证说，无论是马拉塔突袭还是孟买的建立都不足以摧毁苏拉特。相反，摧毁苏拉特的主要原因是莫卧儿帝国、萨法维帝国和奥斯曼帝国红海诸省的政治解体。沿着的贸易路线和苏拉特商人的传统市场的不安全从18世纪的第二个十年开始慢慢地破坏了这个城镇。作者对苏拉特商人的政治和社会环境进行了细致的重构，让我们比以前更详细地看到了印度商人和商人群体。这一努力也使本书对亚洲市场特征的长期讨论做出了重要贡献，该讨论以荷兰社会学家货车勒（van Leur）提出的“小贩贸易”概念为中心。一方面，达斯·古普塔发现商人的不安全感和孤立感，以及他的研究所证实的市场的不确定性;但另一方面，一些较大的商人，特别是穆拉·阿卜杜勒·加富尔（Mulla Abdul Gaffur）。1718年），拥有十七艘海船，并被一些同时代人认为是世界上最富有的商人，不符合我们的形象，小贩作为一个贫穷和无能为力的巡回商人。然而，据达斯·古普塔说，即使是毛拉·阿卜杜勒·加富尔也可能被认为是一个小贩，“因为他孤立，他的不确定性和他对他无法控制的力量的基本依赖。“亚洲市场的特点不是没有大规模交易，而是这种交易往往增加不确定性，而在当代欧洲市场，大规模交易往往使价格和交易量更可预测。也许我们需要一个新词来结束这场辩论。我认为，许多历史学家对“小贩”这个词感到厌恶，而不是认为企业形式和市场制度在亚洲和欧洲沿着不同的路线发展，至少从十六世纪末开始是这样。研究近代早期亚洲贸易的历史学家处于一种特殊的地位。原材料丰富，但大部分是由欧洲贸易公司积累的。在《印度商人与苏拉特的衰落》一书中，达斯·古普塔再次展示了他罕见的能力，即通过谨慎和批判地利用他的消息来源，超越公司的视角，渗透到亚洲世界。
The subsequent decline of Surat has been ascribed to various, more or less fortuitous causes, and one of the major results of Das Gupta's investigation is that we are now able to see this decline in the context of Eighteenth-century Indian economic and political history. He argues convincingly that neither the Maratha raids nor the foundation of Bombay were sufficient to destroy Surat. Rather, what ruined Surat was primarily the political disintegration of the Mughal Empire, the Safavid Empire, and the Red Sea provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The insecurity along the trade routes and in the traditional markets of Surat's merchants slowly undermined the town from the second decade of the eighteenth century. The author has carefully reconstructed the political and social environment of the merchants of Surat, allowing us to see the Indian merchants and merchant community in greater detail than before. This effort also makes the book an important contribution to the long-standing discussion of the character of the Asian markets, centering upon the concept of "pedlars' trade" formulated by the Dutch sociologist van Leur. On the one hand, Das Gupta finds the insecurity and isolation of the merchants and the uncertainty of the markets confirmed by his researches; yet on the other, some of the larger merchants, notably Mulla Abdul Gaffur (d. 1718), the owner of seventeen seagoing ships and considered by some contemporaries the richest merchant in the world, do not correspond to our image of the pedlar as a poor and powerless itinerant merchant. Nevertheless, according to Das Gupta even a Mulla AbduL Gaffur might be considered a pedlar "in his isolation, his uncertainties and his basic dependence upon forces he could do nothing to control." What characterized the Asian markets was not the absence of large-scale transactions, but the fact that such transactions tended to increase uncertainty, while in the contemporary European markets large-scale trading tended to make prices and the volume of transactions more predictable. Perhaps what we need to bring an end to this debate is a new word. Many historians, I think, are repelled by the word "pedlar" rather than by the idea that entrepreneurial forms and market institutions developed along different lines in Asia and in Europe, at least from the end of the sixteenth century. The historian of early modern Asian trade is in a peculiar position. The source material is abundant, but most of it is accumulated by the European trading companies. In Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat Das Gupta has again shown his rare ability to penetrate beyond the company point of view to the world of Asia by careful and critical use of his sources.