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Currencies of the Indian Ocean World

  • Book
  • © 2019

Overview

Editors:
  1. Steven Serels

    1. Martin Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany

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  2. Gwyn Campbell

    1. Indian Ocean World Centre, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Offers a groundbreaking history of the complex multi-currency system of the Indian Ocean World
  • Examines the economic as well as social, political and religious roles of currencies in the Indian Ocean World, from the thirteenth century to the present
  • Offers case studies covering China, India, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, East Africa, Zanzibar, Madagascar, and Mauritius

Part of the book series: Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies (IOWS)

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xv
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  2. Introduction: The Indian Ocean World Currency System

    • Steven Serels
    Pages 1-15

  3. Major “International” Currencies of China and Japan: The Use of Copper Coins, Silver Ingots and Paper Money

    • Angela Schottenhammer
    Pages 17-48

  4. Indian Kingdoms 1200–1500 and the Maritime Trade in Monetary Commodities

    • John S. Deyell
    Pages 49-69

  5. What East Africans Got for Their Ivory and Slaves: The Nature, Working and Circulation of Commodity Currencies in Nineteenth-Century East Africa

    • Karin Pallaver
    Pages 71-92

  6. Currency and Currency Problems in Imperial Madagascar, 1820–1895

    • Gwyn Campbell
    Pages 93-112

  7. Currency as Commodity, as Symbol of Sovereignty and as Subject of Legal Dispute: Henri Greffülhe and the Coinage of Zanzibar in the Late Nineteenth Century

    • Catherine Eagleton
    Pages 113-140

  8. The Circulation of Modern Currencies and the Impoverishment of the Red Sea World, 1882–2010

    • Steven Serels
    Pages 141-164

  9. Gilding the Waves: Gold Smuggling and Monetary Policies Around the Arabian Sea, 1939–1967

    • Johan Mathew
    Pages 165-184

  10. Dollar, Sovereign and Rupee: Money in Mauritius

    • Amenah Jahangeer Chojoo, Gorah Beebeejaun
    Pages 185-196

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 197-230
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Keywords

About this book

This book is the first to trace the unique monetary history of the Indian Ocean World. Long-distance trade across the region was facilitated by a highly complex multi-currency system undergirded by shared ideas that transcended ethno-linguistic, religious and class divisions. Currencies also occupied key roles in local spiritual, aesthetic and affective practices. Foregrounding these tensions between the global/universalistic and the local/particularistic, the volume shows how this traditional currency system remained in place until the middle of the twentieth century, and how aspects of the system continue to inform monetary practices throughout the region. With case studies covering China, India, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, East Africa, Zanzibar, Madagascar and Mauritius from the thirteenth to the twenty-first centuries, this volume explores the central role currencies played in economic exchange as well as in establishing communal bonds, defining state power and expressing religious sentiments.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Martin Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany

    Steven Serels

  • Indian Ocean World Centre, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

    Gwyn Campbell

About the editors

Steven Serels holds a joint appointment as a Research Officer at the Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Regionalstudien at Martin Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, and as a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, USA.


Gwyn Campbell is Founding Director of the Indian Ocean World Centre at McGill University, Canada.


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