Annual Lecture Series in Jain Studies Book Roundtable
Bankrolling Empire: Family Fortunes and Political Transformation in Mughal India
Wed. January 21st | 4:00-6:00pm | Sproul 912
How did local business leaders shape state power in early modern India? Bankrolling Empire presents such a tale by analyzing the downfall of the Mughal Empire and the growth of financial speculation in state-building projects in South Asia between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. By the 1660s, the mighty Mughal Empire controlled the Indian subcontinent and impressed the world with its strength and opulence. Yet, hardly two decades would pass before fortunes would turn, Mughal emperors and governors losing influence to rival warlords and foreign powers. How could one of the most dominant early modern polities lose grip over empire? This book proposes an altogether different point of departure, focusing on diverse local and hitherto unexplored evidence about a prominent financier family entrenched in bankrolling Mughal elites and their successors. By analyzing how four generations of the Jhaveri family of Gujarat financed politics, Bankrolling Empire offers a fresh take on the dissolution of the Mughal empire, the birth of princely successor states, and the nature of precolonial society and economy.
Presider: Dr. Lynna Dhanani, Department of Religion, Culture and Society, UC Davis
Respondents:
Dr. Ali Anooshahr, History Department, UC Davis
Dr. Sudipta Sen, History Department, UC Davis
Dr. Atul Shah, School of Policy and Global Affairs, City St. George's, University of London
Dr. Samira Sheikh, Department of History, Vanderbilt University
Dr. Sudev Sheth holds a joint appointment as Senior Lecturer in the Department of History and at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. His research and teaching focuses on the history of South Asia and global history, entrepreneurship and family enterprise, and comparative business history. His writings have appeared in the Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Economic & Political Weekly, Manuscript Studies, and Business History Review. He has also authored several MBA-level case studies for Harvard Business Publishing. He earned a PhD in History and South Asian Studies with Distinction from the University of Pennsylvania and previously studied history at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and the University of California at Berkeley. In 2018-19, he was the Harvard-Newcomen Fellow in Business History at Harvard Business School.
