Hooghly The Global History of a River

Robert Ivermee, "Hooghly : The Global History of a River"
English | ISBN: 9354223141 | 2020 | 257 pages | AZW3 | 1,5 MB
The Hooghly, a distributary of the Ganges flowing south to the Bay of Bengal, is now little known outside of India. Yet for centuries it was a river of truly global significance, attracting merchants, missionaries, mercenaries, statesmen, laborers and others from Europe, Asia and beyond. Hooghly seeks to restore the waterway to the heart of global history. Focusing in turn on the role of and competition between those who struggled to control the river-the Portuguese, the Mughals, the Dutch, the French and finally the British, who built their imperial capital, Calcutta, on its banks-the author considers how the Hooghly was integrated into global networks of encounter and exchange, and the dramatic consequences that ensued.