The Imperial Crisis in the Deccan

1976 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. F Richards
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Rapid Rise ◽  
Mughal Empire ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century

In recent years, historians associated with the school of Indo-Muslim history at Aligarh Muslim University have developed a persuasive, now widely accepted, view of imperial decline. Satish Chandra and M. Athar Ali have argued that a primary cause of the collapse of the Mughal empire in the early eighteenth century was the rise of intense factionalism among the Mughal nobility. Conflict within this imperial elite (i.e., the body of amirs or mansabdars holding ranks of 1000 zat or above) resulted from a rapid rise to nearly double the number of nobles during the latter portion of the reign of the Emperor Aurangzeb (1658–1707). This growth in the number of nobles was not matched by a corresponding increase in the resources available to pay them and their followers. Consequently, the system of alienation of the land-tax proceeds for salary payments (the jagir system) broke down simply because not enough lands could be found to meet a sharply enhanced demand.

Embodied Invention

2021 ◽  
pp. 115-140
Author(s):  
Bettina Varwig
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Historical Account ◽  
Keyboard Music ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century

This chapter develops a historical account of Bach’s musicking body, and those of early-eighteenth-century keyboardists more generally, as a way to rethink how Bach’s keyboard music was conceived and performed. It synthesizes aspects of contemporaneous medical, scientific, and theological discourses about the human faculties of touch, memory, and invention, and brings these into dialogue with the inventive and performative dimensions of Bach’s keyboard practice. The chapter unearths historical conceptions of memory as physiologically grounded and distributed across the body, of touch as a corporeal-spiritual faculty, and of human bodies as purposive and intelligent. These notions of a bodily kind of intelligence suggest the need to ascribe much greater agency to the embodied aspects of early-eighteenth-century modes of composing and performing. The chapter thus offers a somatic alternative to the customary focus on mental, disembodied patterns of invention in understanding Bach’s compositional and improvisatory practices at the keyboard.

scholarly journals Honour, Masculinity and Corporality in the Officer Corps of Early Eighteenth-Century Sweden

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Ville Sarkamo
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Officer Corps ◽  
Military Life ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Right

Military honour and physical commitment to serve king and fatherland played a central role in the ideals of the army of Charles XII of Sweden. These ideals were formed within a culture in which the role of the warrior, dictated by a code of honour, was constantly challenged. My main empirical primary sources consist of the archivale records of the Swedish Diet, which included Placement Committee records from the Diet of 1723. An honourable man had the right to a livelihood and a respectable position in society. My aim is to show that, in order to obtain such a position, a military man had to present himself as someone who had offered his body in the service of his king and country. An appeal to one’s merits in battle was the best way of defending a claim to a post, because bravery in combat was the most respected virtue in military life. Those officers who had clear proof of their bravery, especially in the form of combat wounds, were in the best position. In this sense, honour and the body were closely linked.

1700–1740 Libels in Hieroglyphics: Pope, Defoe

2019 ◽  
pp. 89-156
Author(s):  
Thomas Keymer
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Close Study ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century

This chapter approaches the 1700–40 period through close study of Defoe and Pope, and focuses especially, for context, on press control under Harley and others during the reign of Queen Anne and under Walpole in the 1720s and 1730s. Early eighteenth-century cases like that of Joseph Browne (which opened up the prosecution of ironic discourse) gave Pope a larger context in which to frame his mockery of Defoe in The Dunciad; they also informed, more broadly, his satirical exploration of the pillory and its meanings throughout the body of his work. New interpretations are offered of The Shortest Way with the Dissenters and the much-mythologized pillorying that ensued. The provocativeness of Defoe’s pamphleteering is contrasted with Pope’s virtuosity, from Windsor Forest to the Epilogue to the Satires, in insinuating seditious hints while remaining within the parameters of acceptable utterance in verse.

The Possible Influence of Early Eighteenth Century Scientific Literature on Jonathan Hulls, a Pioneer of Steam Navigation

1951 ◽  
Vol 1 (5) ◽  
pp. 105-108
Author(s):  
Leonard G. Hulls
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Scientific Work ◽  
The Body ◽  
Steam Engine ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century

The story of Jonathan Hulls and his scientific work is, for various reasons, of peculiar interest. Although mention of him is to be found in many works dealing with the steam-engine and, in some instances, he is referred to as the inventor of the steam-boat, it is a fact that very little is known concerning the man and his work. From time to time articles dealing with his invention appear in newspapers and journals, sometimes accompanied by drawings which are intended to represent the steam-boat. The authors of these articles usually appear to have given free rein to their imagination, with the result that readers are misinformed. Errors of this sort are not confined to non-scientific literature, and various conflicting statements are to be found spread throughout the body of engineering text-books. The object of this paper is to set out briefly such facts as are known concerning Hulls; to consider the scientific literature to which he had access, and to show how this may have influenced him.

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