This first of three volumes focuses on the evolution of Bengal's economy and society over the entire pre-colonial period beginning from pre-historic days. There is no documented, authentic history of Bengal. Indeed, more of the early history of India can be learned from the writings of other nationals. Yet even this material is very much related to chronologies of regimes and local to urban settlements and centres of trade. There remains little or no information on the villages where the vast majority lived and still live. Furthermore, until this work, little or no consideration has been given to the hugely influential period between Vasco de Gama's journey to India in 1498 and the battle of Palashi in 1757, a period in which the Mughal Empire held political power while the English, Dutch, French and Danes and other European nations grasped and held on to economic power. Much has been written on the Mughal Empire, but little of the role of the European trading companies in the two and a half centuries preceding Clive's victory. This book addresses that void and seeks also to explore the political, social and historical context in Bengal that facilitated the transfer of power into European hands. Given such a lack of source information, the author examines oral history, carried from generation to generation, recognizing their fallibility, but using those histories to corroborate what is known from other sources - from archaeological findings (coins, inscriptions, copper plates) through (invariably biased or localized) accounts from travellers, to economic, agricultural and ecological factors - relating them to known chronological events to provide a well-rounded history and, indeed, a study that uncovers the roots of the many issues in the colonial and post-colonial eras.

This provocative book shows that Europe in the Middle Ages was as much a product of a process of conquest and colonization as it was later a colonizer. "Will be of great interest to. . . . (those) interested in cultural transformation, colonialism, racism, the Crusades, or holy wars in general. . . ".--William C. Jordan, Princeton University. 12 halftones, 12 maps, 6 diagrams.

The startling economic and political answers behind Europe's historical dominance Between 1492 and 1914, Europeans conquered 84 percent of the globe. But why did Europe establish global dominance, when for centuries the Chinese, Japanese, Ottomans, and South Asians were far more advanced? In Why Did Europe Conquer the World?, Philip Hoffman demonstrates that conventional explanations—such as geography, epidemic disease, and the Industrial Revolution—fail to provide answers. Arguing instead for the pivotal role of economic and political history, Hoffman shows that if certain variables had been different, Europe would have been eclipsed, and another power could have become master of the world. Hoffman sheds light on the two millennia of economic, political, and historical changes that set European states on a distinctive path of development, military rivalry, and war. This resulted in astonishingly rapid growth in Europe's military sector, and produced an insurmountable lead in gunpowder technology. The consequences determined which states established colonial empires or ran the slave trade, and even which economies were the first to industrialize. Debunking traditional arguments, Why Did Europe Conquer the World? reveals the startling reasons behind Europe's historic global supremacy.

U.S. History is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of most introductory courses. The text provides a balanced approach to U.S. history, considering the people, events, and ideas that have shaped the United States from both the top down (politics, economics, diplomacy) and bottom up (eyewitness accounts, lived experience). U.S. History covers key forces that form the American experience, with particular attention to issues of race, class, and gender.

Existing textbooks on international relations treat history in a cursory fashion and perpetuate a Euro-centric perspective. This textbook pioneers a new approach by historicizing the material traditionally taught in International Relations courses, and by explicitly focusing on non-European cases, debates and issues. The volume is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on the international systems that traditionally existed in Europe, East Asia, pre-Columbian Central and South America, Africa and Polynesia. The second part discusses the ways in which these international systems were brought into contact with each other through the agency of Mongols in Central Asia, Arabs in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, Indic and Sinic societies in South East Asia, and the Europeans through their travels and colonial expansion. The concluding section concerns contemporary issues: the processes of decolonization, neo-colonialism and globalization – and their consequences on contemporary society. History of International Relations provides a unique textbook for undergraduate and graduate students of international relations, and anybody interested in international relations theory, history, and contemporary politics.

This book focuses on why Europe became the dominant economic force in global trade between 1450 and 1750.

In “The Making of Europe”: Essays in Honour of Robert Bartlett, a group of distinguished contributors analyse processes of conquest, colonization and cultural change in Europe in the tenth to fourteenth centuries. They assess and develop theses presented by Robert Bartlett in his famous book of that name. The geographical scope extends from Iceland to the Islamic Mediterranean, from Spain to Poland. Themes covered range from law to salt production, from aristocratic culture in the Christian West to Islamic views of Christendom. Like the volume that it honours, the present book extends our understanding of both medieval and present day Europe. Contributors are Sverre Bagge, Piotr Górecki, John Hudson, Hugh Kennedy, Simon MacLean, William Ian Miller, Esther Pascua Echegaray, Ana Rodriguez, Matthew Strickland, John Tolan, Bjorn Weiler, and Stephen D. White. This is an excellent collection of essays that do justice to Rob Bartlett’s inexhaustible book, The Making of Europe. Rather than merely repeating and venerating Bartlett’s ideas, the essays engage creatively and critically with them and spark new ideas and insights that cast a flood of light on the culture of medieval Europe. The result is a worthy tribute that will send readers scurrying back to Bartlett to quarry yet more nuggets from The Making of Europe, still fizzing with intellectual brio some twenty years after its publication. Stuart Airlie, University of Glasgow October 2015