| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.1

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Comparative/World

Claude Markovits. The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–1947: Traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama. (Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society, number 6.) New York: Cambridge University Press. 2000. Pp. xv, 327. $64.95.

This stunning book deserves a very wide audience indeed. Ostensibly about two groups of merchants hailing from quite small towns in Sind, now in Pakistan, it in fact addresses a host of general historiographical problems while remaining firmly grounded in a surprising mass of empirical data. Claude Markovits touches on such diverse matters as indigenous economic activity under colonialism, world-system theory, distinctions among global, national, and local connections, and the much-debated matter of diasporas. 1

The two hometowns are Shikarpur and Hyderabad (men coming from here were commonly known as Sindworkies) in the Sind region, which was conquered by the British in 1843 and in 1947 became part of Pakistan. These Hindu merchants (though, as this book makes clear, to categorize them thus is problematic) fled to India after partition, and their fate since then makes up the brief epilogue to this book. 2

Those who have tried to study the activities of Indian merchants, or merchants from any other place for that matter, either before or during colonialism will be well aware of the difficulties of finding sources. These people, especially before colonialism, governed their trade by oral contracts, and secrecy was an important part of their method of competing with others. Colonialism at least had the fortunate consequence of producing more written records, and Markovits has very diligently mined these in a wide variety of places. Court records relating to inheritance disputes are a prime source. . . .

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