- Jubilee offer: spend £10 or more on any product sold by Amazon.co.uk on or before June 6 and you can buy The Diamond Jubilee A Classical Celebration Album for just £2.50 Here's how (terms and conditions apply)
| |||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"This is a highly intelligent and beautifully written study. The authors cite poetry and include many black and white renderings of miniature paintings, all of which enrich the text. Anyone whose intellectual interests are global will enjoy the challenging and rewarding adventure that the travellers and authors provide."
--The Northern Mariner
"....Comparative in approach, the authors also critically draw on the European discourse of travel writing as discovery and ethnography in this geographic area....the book consists of extensive summaries of the works grouped under broad headings that categorize the accounts according to the attitudes of the writers....Combining the linguistic and historical acumen of two formidable scholars, this book is sure to open up many avenues for future research."
--Sunil Sharma, Boston University, The Historian
"It is remarkable what is shared and not shared in this Indo-Persian world. Travel literature—in both the theoretical discussions and the glimpses into the authors' own motivations, assumptions, preferences, and complaints—brings this world alive. Indo-Persian Travels enables this corpus of travel literature to illuminate the social, cultural, and intellectual history of the period."
--Monica M. Ringer, Amherst College, Journal of Interdisciplinary History
"The primary value of this work for educators is that it can be utilized to greatly expand the knowledge and understanding of the Indo-Persian culture, and to a lesser extent that of the eastern Mediterranean. The mulitcultural nature of the travel accounts lends the work to comparative studies in political, religious, and economic systems. Overall, the comparative organization of the travel narratives makes this work a valuable tool in reconstructing the encounters between not only East and West, but also the regional empires of India, Persia, and the Ottoman Turks of Anatolia."
--World History Bulletin
"...a masterful travelogue of travelogues..." -Jamsheed K. Choksy, American Historical Review
--The Northern Mariner
"....Comparative in approach, the authors also critically draw on the European discourse of travel writing as discovery and ethnography in this geographic area....the book consists of extensive summaries of the works grouped under broad headings that categorize the accounts according to the attitudes of the writers....Combining the linguistic and historical acumen of two formidable scholars, this book is sure to open up many avenues for future research."
--Sunil Sharma, Boston University, The Historian
"It is remarkable what is shared and not shared in this Indo-Persian world. Travel literature—in both the theoretical discussions and the glimpses into the authors' own motivations, assumptions, preferences, and complaints—brings this world alive. Indo-Persian Travels enables this corpus of travel literature to illuminate the social, cultural, and intellectual history of the period."
--Monica M. Ringer, Amherst College, Journal of Interdisciplinary History
"The primary value of this work for educators is that it can be utilized to greatly expand the knowledge and understanding of the Indo-Persian culture, and to a lesser extent that of the eastern Mediterranean. The mulitcultural nature of the travel accounts lends the work to comparative studies in political, religious, and economic systems. Overall, the comparative organization of the travel narratives makes this work a valuable tool in reconstructing the encounters between not only East and West, but also the regional empires of India, Persia, and the Ottoman Turks of Anatolia."
--World History Bulletin
"...a masterful travelogue of travelogues..." -Jamsheed K. Choksy, American Historical Review
Product Description
Originally published in 2007, this fascinating work is based on detailed and sensitive readings of travel accounts in Persian, dealing with India, Iran and Central Asia between around 1400 and 1800. The first comprehensive treatment of this neglected genre of literature (safar nama), it links the Mughals, Safavids and Central Asia in a crucial period of transformation and cultural contact. The authors' close reading of these travel accounts help us enter the mental and moral worlds of the Muslim and non-Muslim literati who produced these valuable narratives. These accounts are presented in a comparative framework, which sets them side by side with other Asian accounts, as well as early modern European travel narratives, and opens up a rich and unsuspected vista of cultural and material history. This book can be read for a better understanding of the nature of early modern encounters, but also for the sheer pleasure of entering a new world.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Really Eye Opening
25 Jan 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The key to understanding South Asian history lies in understanding the Mughal Empire. The Mughal's were the descendants of Genghis Khan and towards the end of the 16th century they stormed into Northern India and took it over, and then they took over the rest of India more or less. But here's the thing about the Mughals- they have fought in the style of Genghis Khan, but culturally they were Persianized, in that they looked at Persian culture: it's art, poetry and general style as a lodestone. Centuries before the British showed up, South Asia had a lingua franca, and that language was Persian.
The Persians were in South Asia before the Mughal's took the place over. In fact, this book talks about a Persian traveller who was in Thailand in the 15th century and observed that Persian merchants were already there and in power. The supirse that emerges from Indo Persian travels is that both the Persians and the Ottomans had an attitude towards India and South Asia resembles that of the Europeans towards the same people's three centuries later. To whit: This book is replete with well educated Persian writers denigrating Indians for being "insufferably black."
During much of the 16th and 17th centuries, educated Persians travelled to India in search of economic opportunity. Their trips had the same goals as those of Europeans who would travel to the New World starting in the 15th century. The travel narratives of the Indo-Persian world tilt entirely west-to-east- very few examples of Indians traveling to the West and no examples of Persian speakers traveling to Europe.
Most of the narratives described in this book are educated Persians traveling to the court of the Mughal Empire and just bitching up a storm. Not a single one of them has any appreciation for Hindus or their culture other then as a source of "amazements." Clearly, this book is evidence that Western Europeans have never had a monopoly on condescending attitudes towards people in "less developed" parts of the world. One wonders if we all might not get along better if conservative Americans and Europeans understood that Iranian and Europeans basically had the same racist sentiments towards the "others" that they encountered in their world-wide travels.
The Persians were in South Asia before the Mughal's took the place over. In fact, this book talks about a Persian traveller who was in Thailand in the 15th century and observed that Persian merchants were already there and in power. The supirse that emerges from Indo Persian travels is that both the Persians and the Ottomans had an attitude towards India and South Asia resembles that of the Europeans towards the same people's three centuries later. To whit: This book is replete with well educated Persian writers denigrating Indians for being "insufferably black."
During much of the 16th and 17th centuries, educated Persians travelled to India in search of economic opportunity. Their trips had the same goals as those of Europeans who would travel to the New World starting in the 15th century. The travel narratives of the Indo-Persian world tilt entirely west-to-east- very few examples of Indians traveling to the West and no examples of Persian speakers traveling to Europe.
Most of the narratives described in this book are educated Persians traveling to the court of the Mughal Empire and just bitching up a storm. Not a single one of them has any appreciation for Hindus or their culture other then as a source of "amazements." Clearly, this book is evidence that Western Europeans have never had a monopoly on condescending attitudes towards people in "less developed" parts of the world. One wonders if we all might not get along better if conservative Americans and Europeans understood that Iranian and Europeans basically had the same racist sentiments towards the "others" that they encountered in their world-wide travels.
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > History > Countries & Regions > Asia > India
- Books > History > Countries & Regions > Asia > Middle East > Iran
- Books > History > Europe > Renaissance, Reformation, Thirty Years War 1501-1750
- Books > Science & Nature > Earth Sciences & Geography > Education > Higher Education
- Books > Science & Nature > Earth Sciences & Geography > Geography > Regional
- Books > Travel & Holiday > Countries & Regions > Asia > India
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
