Wild, Antony. The East India Company: Trade and Conquest from 1600. London: HarperCollins, 1999.

I began my shelfie search looking for a book about trade in early modern history, but my searches did not produce many promising results.  I then refined my search focusing specifically on The East India Company, and that is what brought me to this book, The East India Company: Trade and Conquest from 1600 by Antony Wild.  The book gives a complete overview of the establishment of the East India Company, and the eventual trading empire it was able to create.  Wild’s work also delves into the specific daily operations of the business, and how the company was eventually absorbed by the British Crown.  I also found it compelling how the book uses many  pictures and illustrations. They are very similar to the 100 objects we look at in class, and I think they add an extra depth to story of the East India Company.  The book resides in the upper level of the library and is surrounded by other books about the formation of India and British colonization of India.  

Book Information: Pierson, Stacey. From Object to Concept: Global Consumption and the Transformation of Ming Porcelain. Hong Kong: Hong Kong UP, 2013. Print.

Trade has been a very important part in class readings and discussions, so I wanted to look for a book that reflected that. In addition, our last reading involved East Asian empires and how they were involved in an interconnected world. Interestingly, I found this book while searching under the keywords “Qing” and “trade.” Because this book is about Ming porcelain and global consumption, it reminded me of the Kakiemon Elephants from Japan. However, another reason why I chose this book was that it looked like it might tie in how Ming porcelain was treated in the modern world, and how that has changed from its conception (or as the book title properly labels it- the transformation from object to concept). Pierson begins with the conception of Ming porcelain between the 14^th and 17^th century. She writes about how porcelain is manufactured and its’ function. She goes on to describe how Ming porcelain went on to be distributed globally, and the different reactions people had depending on where they came from (Europe, Africa, west and south Asia. Pierson also talks about what Ming porcelain meant to Europe as a linguistic invention. Finally, Pierson discusses Ming porcelain as it relates to the Art world since the 19^th century. This book essentially covers the time line of Ming Porcelain in a way that best highlights the importance of Porcelain in a specific time period, as well as why it was (and is) important.

Interesting titles near From Object to Concept: There were a lot of books on Chinese porcelain and consumption, which leads me to believe that these books not only cover Ming porcelain and trade, but other dynasties as well.

The Empire of The Great Mughals

Schimmel, Annemarie. The Empire Of The Great Mughals : History, Art And Culture. London: Reaktion, 2004. Print.

The search terms I used to find this book were “mughal empire”, “religion”, and “culture”. I was interested in learning more about the Mughal empire because we had learned in class that they were one of the most wealthy empires in the world. When searching for the book the first thing that caught my eye was the title. I was intrigued by the aspect of art and culture in the history. When flipping throughout the book, the numerous photos of art and portraits from the time of the Mughals drew my attention. When looking at the table of contents and reading blurbs from the book, it appears that the book is about the cultural details of the Mughal empire. The chapters cover things from each emperor’s rule, religion, the arts, language, to the role of women. As we discussed in class, the book talked about the religious tolerance of the Mughals. The Mughals were a majority Islamic, but other tolerated religions included Jains, Parsis, Jews, Christians, and more. This book tells the reader a lot about life in the empire, and the practices and lifestyle of their people. Some interesting titles of other books around The Empire of The Great Mughals included, The Scandal of Empires, and The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi.

The Aztec World by Elizabeth Hill Boone is a history book that discusses different aspects of the Aztec Empire. The book tells the reader about Aztec culture, government, religion, and economy. The first chapter includes the historical events of Hernan Cortez’s, a Spanish explorer, arrival. The book also discusses the layout and size of capital city of the Aztec Empire, Tenochtitlan. The city rested on an island in a lake and had a population of 150,000 or more civilians. The total population surrounding the lake in addition to Tenochtitlan’s population amounts to about 1,000,000.  In perspective, the largest cities in Europe at the time were Paris and Constantinople, which had populations of about 300,000 people each (Boone 18).

I wanted to find a book dealing with the Aztec Empire. So, I typed in “Aztec Empire” in the search engine on the upper-level computer at Skillman Library and a bunch of results showed up. I picked The Aztec World by Elizabeth Hill Boone and used the ISP number to locate the book. Near The Aztec World I found some interesting books titled The Aztec Handbook and another book about the Mexican Revolution. When I opened The Aztec World the colorful pictures caught my eye and after flipping through the book I noticed each chapter opened up with an interesting story, which makes the book a page turner. A lot of times history books can seem bland, but this book was enjoyable to look through.

Works Cited:

Boone, Elizabeth Hill. The Aztec World. Montreal: St. Remy, 1994. Print.

The City and Tsar: Peter the Great and the move to the West 1648-1762.

Lamb, Harold. The City and Tsar: Peter the Great and the Move to the West 1648-1762. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1957. Print.

I am currently taking a Russian history of culture, art and politics course, so going into this Shelfie, I choose to focus on the Eurasian Empire of Russia, Peter the Great, and the impact he had during his reign. When searching the library catalog for titles that fit what I wanted to read, I looked up keywords such as “Peter the Great” and “Russia”. Naturally, titles about his bringing of western culture to Russia appeared. I chose the book entitled The City and Tsar: Peter the Great and the Move to the West because after listening to lectures in the Russian history class on him, I feel this title embodied Peter the Great best. The books cover is a plain red and the pages contain little illustrations and only a few maps. However, from reading the chapter outlines, I gathered that the book covered the full scope of Peter the Great’s travels to Western Europe, mainly Britain, and the aspirations he had for bringing Russia out of the “dark ages”. It also included the changes Peter the Great put into action in Russia and his revamping of St. Petersburg, a major city in Russia. The books that surrounded this one on the shelf were also about the life and times of Peter the Great and the impact he had on the history of the Russian Empire.

Charity and power in early modern Italy

Cavallo, Sandra. Charity and Power in Early Modern Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. Print.

I searched the terms “charity” and “Italy” to find my book. The book discusses the themes that were also discussed the Epidemics chapter that we read such as civic charity, religious charity, and responses to the plague. I was drawn to this book because it gave a more in depth look at a topic that we only briefly covered in class. This book expands its focus past religious and state mandated charity into themes like motivations for charity and charity and gender and is organized thematically, which I found helpful. I thought the illustrations and images spread throughout the book, which vary from images of first hand sources to graphs and charts, to be a refreshing way of presenting information pertaining to this specific topic.

From Africa to Brazil: Culture, Identity, and an Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600-1830

Hawthorne, Walter. From Africa to Brazil: Culture, Identity, and an Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600-1830. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010. Print.

I found this book by searching “Slave trade in Africa”. I then narrowed the sources given to just books. I felt that this book relates to what we learned in class, because the book deals with the Portuguese sending Africans to work in Brazil. this book also deals with the same time period we were discussing in class, the 1600’s. What really caught my eye to this book was the cover. The cover depicts Africans laboring on what seems to be a plantation. As I skimmed through the table of contexts of the book, it seems the book gives a very in depth view of the slave trade from Africa to Brazil. It begins with discussing why enslavement happened and how they were transported and ends talking about the cultural changes this slave trade brought to Brazil. The book also includes maps, documents, and drawings to give a further sense of what the slave trade was like. The books that surrounded mine on the bookshelf had to deal with similar subjects. For example,  the two books next to it were called To Be a Slave in Brazil and Slave Rebellion in Brazil.

Wars of Empire

Porch, Douglas. Wars of Empire. London: Cassell, 2000. Print.

In my search, I used the keywords “empire” and “wars” to find the book. The book actually has a bunch of artifacts in it like the gold llama from the Inca empire that we read about last week. It also discusses why empires are significant and what some of the limitations are to warfare with these empires. I found this book with a lot of others that would be relevant to our class, as well. Many of them had to do with colonial powers, sea power, etc. I was drawn to this book in particular because we have not really talked about warfare amongst the empires that much. I am interested in how these wars occurred amongst the superpowers, so I thought that this book would be particularly revealing on the subject.

Mirroring the Past: The Writing and the Use of History in Imperial China

Ng, On Cho, and Q. Edward Wang. Mirroring the Past: The Writing and Use of History in Imperial China. Honolulu: U of Hawaii, 2005. Print.

I discovered this book by imputing the key terms “history of china” and “use of history” into the database. This book was right next to the one that came up on the search results. Since I just read the importance of history to the Chinese throughout the centuries in the BBC podcast of the Jade bi it was cool to pick up this book and open to the prologue which talked all about how China venerated its history and turned the production of history into a “routine”. It goes from the age of Confucius to the last great dynasty, the Qing, and tells how they each documented their history with writing and artifacts that were as important to the Chinese as anything else. The book argues that “control of the past, by imperial fiat, was part of the power and authority of the new regime.” China’s history is every bit as interesting as the authors write about it in this text.

Interesting titles next to this book:

Inventing China Through History

Reinventing Modern China: Imagination and Authenticity in Chinese Historical Writing

Early Modern Things: Objects and Their Histories, 1500-1800

Findlen, Paula. Early Modern Things: Objects and Their Histories, 1500-1800. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2013. Print.

In my search I found Early Modern Things: Objects and Their Histories, 1500-1800. To find this book I searched for results using keywords “empires”, “religion”, and “early modern”. This search yielded me way to many results, so I proceeded to add “difference” to my search on the terms that difference has been one of the most common themes that we have examined thus far. After this search, I was immediately drawn to this book. Comparable to the 100 objects, this book discusses early modern life through material culture. Early Modern Things, is a collection of 17 essays, which explore what we can learn about the early modern world by studying its objects and their meanings. Another emphasis of the book is investigating how these things and their significance changed over time as well as from culture to culture. An object can be viewed differently at different points in its’ existence and this book discusses how this can change the object’s purpose, and significance. In comparison to the 100 objects, this book is much more broad in its analysis of things. For example, one section of the book studies the effect and meaning behind furniture in Georgian England, as opposed to examining one individual object. Overall, I think this book fits in well with out investigation of material culture in the early modern world.

Conflicts of Empires is a text relative to our course due to the fat that it goes far in depth into the relations of multiple empires from the time of 1585-1713. Although I noticed that the book focused mainly on European empires and their relations to the economy at the time and to other facets of life, the book still pertains to our class because it would allow any student to see the inner workings and disputes behind the major events we discuss in class. The book discusses art and diplomacy in Europe, Amsterdam and the stock exchange, the Jews of Spain, and propaganda in the makings of the glorious revolution. Almost every facet of life that an empire is in control of is talked about in this book. Although focusing on European empires is not all our class does, this book provides more background information over the European empires that we discuss. Just because other continental empires are not discussed shouldn’t matter since this book would add to our knowledge of an essential part of the course. The terms I used to find the book was ‘empires’. As conflict is one of the foremost topics we discuss in class I figured Conflicts of Empires would be a good fit.

A Concise History of China

I was able to find A Concise History of China by searching “History of China” and using the keywords “Ming” and “Qing”. I used these two keywords to identify a book that discusses the Chinese Dynasties of the pre-modern era that was detailed in the Empires In World History textbook used for class. I picked out the book because it seemed to offer information that was clear and had information regarding the content discussed in class.

The book itself details China’s history from prehistoric times until the early 1990s. Therefore, it contains a section about what was discussed in class, as well as how China was connected to the rest of the world during this time. This section is about the Ming Dynasty and the rise of the Manchus and the Qing Dynasty. Some specific parts of Chinese history in this section of the book are the rise of Confucianism and the Emperor Kangxi.

Nearby books were mostly about more specific Chinese events, many of which were from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Roberts, J.A.G. A Concise History of China. Hong Kong: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1999. Print.

Realm of the Evening Star: a history of Morocco and the lands of the Moors

Hoffman, Eleanor. Realm of the Evening Star: A History of Morocco and the Lands of the Moors. 1st ed. Philadelphia: Chilton, 1965. Print.

I have always been interested in the Moors since high school. After my Spanish class one day, my teacher and I had a discussion on world history; although a strange topic to discuss for Spanish class, my teacher seemed to be an expert specifically on a group called the Moors. He told me that the Moors were the original creators of modern day Spain, not the Europeans who took it from them. Since then, I have always wanted to know more. As google is not good enough, this assignment finally gave me a small answer. I came to the library and used one the computers; I have done research before and I knew what I was looking for (this made it easy). I typed in “history of the Moors”; this, I found the book Realm of the Evening Star: a history of Morocco and the lands of the Moors.

While flipping through the book and examining the table of contents, the book seems to give a guide through Moroccan history from the “prehistoric years to 1961; moreover, the book has a list of the kings, sultans, rulers, etc. since then. The book also highlights key events in every chapter; however, there are details of the Moors conquest of Europe hidden through each account. Whereas the book reports mostly on Moroccan history, there are brief chapters explaining proceedings with the French and other European nations; furthermore, this book has a glossary of important names in Moroccan history. The book is  a wealth of information and is surrounded by additional books of the same status. The other books, found on the same shelf as Realm of the Evening Star: a history of Morocco and the lands of the Moors, further examine more specific parts of Moroccan history. Topics range from the last king, found in Hassan II, and the new Moroccan world found in Rebirth of a Nation. These books give an accurate account of Moroccan world history. Although we haven’t focused on the Moors specifically in class, I’m sure my Spanish teacher would be happy to know I found them.

Hawthorne, Walter. From Africa to Brazil: Culture, Identity, and an Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600-1830. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010. Print.

In order to look for my book, I accessed the Skillman Library website and in OneSearch, I looked up the words “slave”, “trade”, and “Africa”. The topic on slave trade between the Africans and the Europeans in South America from the last chapter was very interesting to me, as I did not know that many aristocrats in Africa were supportive of slavery. After the search, I came up with over 1200 books. I then added the year “1600” to the search, because that was the time that Spaniards and the Portuguese grew a larger demand for slavery. This came up with my book From Africa to Brazil: Culture, Identity, and an Atlantic Slave Trade by Walter Hawthorne, which caught my eye because it perfectly fit with what I wanted to look for. This book seems be broken into two main parts. The first part talks mainly about the process on which how and why enslavement occurred in Upper Guinea sent to Brazil. The second part of the book talks about the change and the continuity of each culture due to the slave trade. This book also focuses on lives individual slaves, giving accounts of real slaves according to their records. Many of the adjacent books had the same key words “slavery” or “slave” in their titles, and one of them was a four-volume book with the title The British Transatlantic Slave Trade. This assignment was very fun and helpful, as I had never looked for a book in the Skillman Library before and I learned how to utilize the Skillman Library website.

To search for a book for this assignment, I first considered what type of book or subject I might find relevant to the course. I settled on something about the Mongols, as we talk about them and compare them to other empires, but haven’t discussed much specifically about them. I therefore think a book about the Mongol Empire in terms of their conquering and ruling strategies might be compelling for class discussion. To find such a book, I searched ‘Mongol Empire’ on the library website and went to the shelf where the majority of the books were located, knowing that there would probably be something that caught my eye in this location. Mongol Imperialism by Thomas T. Allsen caught my eye, mainly due to the title. In flipping through the book, I discovered that Allsen lays out his argument pretty clearly in the introduction and that the book seems to be about the conquering strategies of the Mongols as well as the ways in which they were able to utilize and mobilize their various resources in order to create the largest contiguous land empire in human history. He even makes specific reference to their interactions with the people of China and Russia, areas on which we are currently focused. I thought this would therefore give a nice overview of Mongol rule to which the empires we discuss in class are so often compared. Adjacent to the book were several other resources of interest, including a primary source: The Secret History of the Mongols.

Allsen, Thomas T. Mongol Imperialism: The Policies of the Grand Qan Möngke in China, Russia, and the Islamic Lands, 1251-1259. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987.

Richards, John F. The Mughal Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Print.

When looking for a book in the library, I started as I usually do. I went onto the Skillman library webpage and searched in the catalog section. I typed in Mughal Empire and history of India. I clicked on the first book on the list and was intrigued by the picture on the cover online, it was a Prince that reminded me of the picture seen on the BBC recording about the Mughal Empire. Locating the book was not too difficult because the search results gives you the location in Skillman, this particular book was located in the Upper level and after following the call number I was able to find the book fairly quickly. As I flipped through the book I was interested in the Map of India located adjacent to the title page that showed the expansion of the Mughal Empire over time; as well as, attempts of Mughal Expansion and the location of the Suri Empire. The book itself is part of a collection of books called the The New Cambridge History of India, the collection is divided into four categories beginning with The Mughals and their Contemporaries, Indian States and the Transition to Colonialism, The Indian Empire and the Beginning of Modern Society, and The Evolution of Contemporary South Asia. Each category has a number of books published under it. The Mughal Empire is divided into twelve chapters, one of which is focused on Jahangir. Jahangir’s chapter is divided into small subsections including Consolidation on the internal frontier, enriching imperial culture, aggression on the northeastern frontier as well as relations with Persia and Central Asia. Just flipping through this chapter gave me insight in the aggressive and expansionist goals Jahangir as well as geographical and religious threats around his empire. Overall, I think this book would allow us more insight on the Mughal Empire and how it was able to maintain its power for so long, especially with succession being open ended. In the case of Jahangir he had almost lost the throne to his eldest son. Succession in the Mughal Empire was determined through military success and through power, as seen by Shah Jahan’s rise to power. Reading this books would allow us better insight on the Mughal Empire and how they could be compared and contrasted to other Empires at the time.

In my search to find a book, I looked up the terms “history”, “religion”, and “technology”. I then decided to look at some books from the religiously-focused section of books and found “Religion and Science” by I an G. Barbour. I think what caught my eye, beyond the general appearance of the book, was the title; it seemed like a book that was both pertinent to the class and interesting in its own right. The book appears to be about  chronicling the interplay between scientific advances and religious beliefs from the enlightenment onward. Looking through the table of contents it appears that ideas from thinkers such as Newton, Galileo, Pascal, and Einstein are contrasted with conjugate religious theories and the how each reacted to the other. Adjacent to the book there are books about the Devil as well as about Idolatry, which are less interesting in my opinion, but to each his/her own

Barbour, Ian G. Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues. San Francisco: Harper, 1997. Print.

Lauren Hughes

16 February 2015

Indian Ocean Slavery in the Age of Abolition

Harms, Robert, Bernard Freamon, and David Blight, eds. Indian Ocean Slavery in the Age of Abolition. New Haven: Yale UP, 2013. Print.

I started out finding this book by talking with the lady at the reference desk in the front of the library. We looked up key words Africa*, Slave*, and Trade on the library catalogue to find the area in the library where books about slave trade would be. The asterisks were important because the results included words in the titles similar to the key word typed in. For example, searching Africa* would pick up key words such as African as well. Most of the hits came up in the HT 1300’s section upstairs. I explored that section and looked at two other books before I found this one. All the books in that section had the word slavery in the title, but this book caught my eye because in class we have been talking about maritime empires and slave trade across the Atlantic and Indian oceans and this book had the words Indian, Ocean, and Slavery all in the title. I chose this book because although we have talked about slave trade in the Indian Ocean, we haven’t discussed slave trade across the Indian Ocean when it was illegal. I thought it would be really interesting to learn more about the difficulty or easiness of slave trade across the Indian Ocean when it was an abolished practice. According to the excerpt on the back, the book is about the increase in illegal slave trade in the western Indian Ocean during the 1800’s and 1900’s after Great Britain declared slavery illegal in the transatlantic world (Harms, Freamon & Blight). Britain’s act caused an increase in slave trade across the Indian Ocean because Great Britain began patrolling the Atlantic coast of Africa, so slave traders had to round the Cape of Good Hope and enter the Indian Ocean to acquire slaves (Harms, Freamon & Blight 1). The book also includes stories about the lives of real slaves who endured this journey. Overall, I think this book would be a great addition to our current material about maritime empires and slave trade across the world.

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