Crafts and Statecraft in Eighteenth Century Jodhpur

2007 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-722 ◽  
Author(s):  
NANDITA PRASAD SAHAI
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
State Formation ◽  
The State ◽  
External Support ◽  
State Appropriations ◽  
Mughal Empire ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Recent Trends

This essay argues that too much of scholarship on state formation in late pre-colonial India has displayed an elitist bias and focused exclusively on the activities and concerns of upper-caste ruling groups alone. Building upon recent trends that have brought into view the roles of a greater diversity of groups, this article explores the agentive role of the crafts and artisan communities in the state formation of Jodhpur during the eighteenth century. This was a period when the Rathor rulers of Jodhpur were unable to rely on the external support of the Mughal Empire and felt compelled to forge alliances with new groups who, perhaps, were previously marginal to political processes in the region. This, of course, did not dissolve the difficult and often exploitative conditions under which artisans worked, and though their agency was more reactive than creative, it did serve to define and limit the levels of state appropriations in revenues and labour.

Slavery and Ransom

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Smiley
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
The State ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Law

This chapter explores captives’ fates after their capture, all along the Ottoman land and maritime frontiers, arguing that this was largely determined by individuals’ value for ransom or sale. First this was a matter of localized customary law; then it became a matter of inter-imperial rules, the “Law of Ransom.” The chapter discusses the nature of slavery in the Ottoman Empire, emphasizing the role of elite households, and the varying prices for captives based on their individual characteristics. It shows that the Ottoman state participated in ransoming, buying, exploiting, and sometimes selling both female and male captives. The state particularly needed young men to row on its galleys, but this changed in the late eighteenth century as the fleet moved from oars to sails. The chapter then turns to ransom, showing that a captive’s ability to be ransomed, and value, depended on a variety of individualized factors.

scholarly journals Muslim Clergy vs. Authority in Contemporary Afghanistan: View from Uzbekistan

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 747-762
Author(s):  
Abdusamat Akhatovich Khaydarov
Keyword(s):  
Negotiation Process ◽  
The State ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Depth Study ◽  
Direct Inter ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Islamic Institutions

Significant geopolitical changes taking place in the modern world in recent decades urge us to take a fresh look at the role of Islam and the clergy in the political processes of a number of countries of the Muslim world. This perspective is especially relevant vis--vis Afghanistan where a fierce war is being waged under the slogans of Islam for more than four decades. The purpose of this research is an in-depth study of the relationship between the state and the Muslim clergy, Islamic institutions in the development of political processes in Afghanistan since the mid-70s of the last century. The article reflects shaping of the Islamic opposition and its efforts to stand up to innovations and reforms during attempts of the Soviet stile modernization in 1978-1992, and then the efforts to democratize Afghan society, undertaken in Afghanistan since the end of 2001 with the assistance of the international community. The work is based on the study of factual historical material, a chronicle of the events of the last decade and personal observations of the author during his work in Afghanistan during the mentioned period. Analytical materials published on the pages of English and Russian mass media were used. The methodological basis of this study is the comparative historical method; the article is based on the principles of historicism, reliability and scientific objectivity. The author concludes that the conflict is based on mistakes and underestimation by the state the role and influence of the Muslim clergy and Islamic institutions of the country. It has been noted that the recently reached US - Taliban agreements, as well as the assistance of such influential players as Russia, sparkle hope for the launch of a direct inter-Afghan negotiation process, which most likely will not be as simple but thorny.

scholarly journals Afterlives of the Republic of Letters: Learned Journals and Scholarly Community in the Early Nineteenth Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-116
Author(s):  
Floris Solleveld
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Scholarly Community ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Changing Role

Abstract What happened to the Republic of Letters? Its history seems to stop at the end of the eighteenth century. And yet, in the nineteenth century, there still existed a community gathered in scholarly societies, maintaining a transnational correspondence network and filling learned journals. The term indeed becomes less frequent, but does not go entirely out of use. This article traces the afterlives of the Republic of Letters in the early nineteenth century. Specifically, it investigates texts that attempt to (re)define the Republic of Letters or a cognate, the wider diffusion of the term, and the changing role of learned journals in that period. While most attempts to reinvent the Republic of Letters failed miserably, they indicate a diagnosis of the state of learning and the position of scholars in a period of transition, and in doing so they contradict an ‘unpolitical’ conception of the Republic of Letters.

scholarly journals Israel Continues to Expand Its Settlements

2015 ◽  
pp. 161-166
Author(s):  
V. Sukhanov
Keyword(s):  
Current Situation ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Peaceful Settlement ◽  
Religious Aspects ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
State Of Israel

The article analyzes the influence of the religious aspects on the political processes in Israel. Special attention is paid to the role of religion in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The author shows the trend towards politicization of religion and characterizes the process as unconstructive, which prevents to a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.The article also discusses the interaction between secular and religious principles in the State of Israel, estimates the current situation, highlights the importance of the religious component in the political life of Israel.

scholarly journals Role of Sufi Saints in North –Western India

IJOHMN ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Dr R. Subramony
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Western India ◽  
Mughal Empire ◽  
Indian History ◽  
Northern India ◽  
North Western ◽  
Cultural Structure

The eighteenth century in Indian History is characterized as an epoch of political anarchy and social chaos that spread unchecked in the wake of the collapse of the Mughal empire. But disintegration of the imperial center and its administrative institutions did not produce any profound effect on the pre-existing pluralistic socio-cultural structure, which was distinguished by widespread Hindu-Muslim unity and culture syncretism in northern India.

Civil society

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean L. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Critical Force ◽  
The State ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Formal Economy ◽  
Role Of The State

In modern social and political philosophy civil society has come to refer to a sphere of human activity and a set of institutions outside state or government. It embraces families, churches, voluntary associations and social movements. The contrast between civil society and state was first drawn by eighteenth-century liberals for the purpose of attacking absolutism. Originally the term civil society (in Aristotelian Greek, politike koinonia) referred to a political community of equal citizens who participate in ruling and being ruled. In the twentieth century the separation of philosophy from social sciences, and the greatly expanded role of the state in economic and social life, have seemed to deprive the concept of both its intellectual home and its critical force. Yet, approaching the end of the century, the discourse of civil society is now enormously influential. What explains the concept’s revival? Does it have any application in societies that are not constitutional democracies? From a normative point of view, what distinguishes civil society from both the state and the formal economy?

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 204-220
Author(s):  
Igor Fedyukin
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Personal Projects

The Conclusion sets the broader context for the key episodes of innovation driven by projectors that have been the subjects of the preceding chapters. It explores the role of diverse enterprisers in the evolution of schools in Russia in the second half of the eighteenth century and later. These enterprisers included numerous private teachers, who dominated the educational landscape in Russia well into the nineteenth century, and diverse officials who promoted their personal projects from within the emerging educational bureaucracy. Contrary to the pervasive myth that the “state” has always been and still is the only player in education in Russia, similar dynamics, to some extent, are observed also in the twentieth century and today.

The Hanoi Reprint of the Precious Scroll of Incense Mountain (1772) and the Printing of Buddhist Works in Northern Vietnam at the End of the Eighteenth Century

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Tô Lan Nguyễn ◽  
Rostislav Berezkin
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Northern Vietnam ◽  
Official Ideology ◽  
Buddhist Scripture ◽  
Woodblock Printing

Abstract The Precious Scroll of Incense Mountain is a popular Buddhist narrative in prosimetric form that was transmitted to Vietnam from China and reprinted in Hanoi with imperial sanction in 1772. The historical background of the Hanoi reprint demonstrates that this text had much higher status in Vietnam than in China. In Vietnam it was regarded as an authoritative Buddhist scripture. The case of the reprint of the Precious Scroll of Incense Mountain reveals the role of Buddhist monasteries as centers of woodblock printing in Vietnam, which still remains understudied in current research. The growth of printing of Buddhist works, which enjoyed the support of the court and officials in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, testifies to the popularity of Buddhism among the ruling elite during the Later Lê dynasty, when Confucianism was proclaimed the official ideology of the state.

Criminal Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Massimo Meccarelli
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Law System ◽  
Historical Turn ◽  
State Monopoly ◽  
Key Aspects

This chapter aims to study features and development of criminal law in the medieval and modern ages. The emergence, at the end of the eighteenth century, of the state monopoly on punishment, connected with the establishment of the statutory law as an ordering factor, represents a historical turn. Before, criminal law—much more than to the exercise of a right to punish—is related to the problem of determining justice in order to produce a public space substitute for revenge. The chapter, considering this different foundation, analyses the ordering factors structuring the criminal law system. It then focuses on peculiar features of the criminal trial and on key aspects such as the role of the judge, the sanctions regimes, the taxonomy of the crimes, and the regimes of proof. Some cursory remarks, as to how the criminal legal order turns into a system under a state monopoly, serve as a conclusion.

Britain's Foreign Alliances in the Eighteenth Century

1988 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 573-602 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Black
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political System ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Distinctive Character ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
British Foreign Policy

One of the greatest problems in the discussion of eighteenth-century British foreign policy concerns the assessment of the influence of the particular character of the British political system. British foreign policy, and thus the country's alliance strategy, was conditioned by the subtle interplay of internal processes, the functioning of her domestic political system, and the international situation. As historians are concerned increasingly to probe the nature of the domestic pressures influencing the formulation and execution of policy, so it becomes more important to define the political, as opposed to constitutional, role of Parliament and public opinion. This is of obvious significance for the study of Britain's relations with her allies. Were these made more difficult as a consequence of the distinctive character of the British political system? There was no shortage of contemporaries willing to state that this was the case. An obvious category of discussion concerned the citing of domestic pressure as a reason why concessions could not be made to foreign powers, both allies and those whose alliance was sought. This was of particular significance when ministries explained why gains made during war could not be surrendered at peace treaties and gains made at the peace could not be yielded subsequently. Their defense of the retention of Gibraltar was based on this argument. Similar arguments were used by British ministers in seeking to persuade allies to do as they wished. Diplomatic pressure on France over the state of Dunkirk or on Spain and Portugal over commercial disputes made frequent use of the argument of domestic pressure.

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