Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire

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He went on to have a successful diplomatic career as ambassador to the Ottoman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire but here he is quite the fish out of water, trying to establish relationships and obtain better trading arrangements without the proper means to do so. It also highlights the complex relationships and power structures at Jahangir’s court, and the open way he conducted much government business, as well as sharing court gossip and intrigue. Drawing on a rich variety of sources – literature, the memoirs of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir, the journals and correspondence of Sir Thomas Roe, plus the archives of the East India Company – Das invites the reader to get to grips with the making of history, and its narration from both perspectives. Courting India was chosen from a shortlist of six books that included: Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China's Cultural Revolution by Tania Branigan; The Violence of Colonial Photography by Daniel Foliard; Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation by Kris Manjapra; Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World by Irene Vallejo; and Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living by Dimitris Xygalatas.

For Das the Roe mission is the lens through which to give sharp focus to a remarkably wide-ranging study that does much to illuminate the bigger story of the unpromising origins of British power – and initial powerlessness – in India . There he found challenges aplenty - the lack of cooperation of the employees of the fledgling East India Company, the sometimes direct challenge from other European powers seeking to develop their commercial interests there, and the lack of any real interest shown by the Mughal court in granting the trading privileges Roe sought. At the same time, she grants us a privileged vantage point from which we can appreciate how a measure of mutual understanding did begin to emerge, even though it was vulnerable to the ups and downs of Mughal politics and to the restless ambitions of the British.

The power of good writing and a well-told story in getting people to understand each other should not be underestimated.

Using an incisive blend of Indian and British records, and exploring the art, literature, sights, and sounds of Elizabethan London and Imperial India, Das portrays the nuances of cultural and national collision on an individual and human level. Nandini Das moves seamlessly between the inner worlds of the courts of seventeenth century England and India and with a mastery of both. On behalf of the British Academy, it is my honour to congratulate Nandini Das on this exceptional work. What followed in India was a turning-point in history, a story of palace intrigue, scandal, and mutual incomprehension that unfolds as global trade begins to stretch from Russia to Virginia, from West Africa to the Spice Islands of Indonesia.as well as Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and, particularly, Mughal sources, to present Roe's four years in the round . Das] is the rare scholar who combines a sensitivity to the literature of Jacobean England with a sympathetic and nuanced understanding of the Mughal empire . This book does just that, drawing on the best of the academic and the literary traditions to shed light on how we are today. Nandini Das is professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture in the English faculty at the University of Oxford.

What a joy to find the first official Indo-British encounter receiving the scholarly attention and enthralling treatment it deserves . This lucid and imaginatively written book tells us a great deal about the hesitant early days of the first British Empire, as a traditionally inward-looking island nation sought to engage with the wider world. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Nandini's] book makes us rethink the idea that Britain was always dominant in India -- Hannah Cusworth ― BBC History Magazine, 2023 Books of the Year --This text refers to the hardcover edition. Their understanding of South Asian trade and India was sketchy at best, and, to the Mughals, they were minor players on a very large stage.In Das’s telling, Roe was not a herald of the Company Raj to come as much as a product of 17th-century England, an island nation whose commercial ambitions were beginning to overshadow its royal court. Moreover, we were reminded through this story of the first ambassadorial mission of the value of international diplomacy, but also of the cultural minefields that surround it in ways that still have resonance today. Although a micro history, this book shines a clear light on the wider times including on the mores and politics of the leaders the Mughal Court, including Shah Jahan, who would go on later to commission the Taj Mahal.