Courting India Nandini Das by Nandini Das 9781639363230, 1639363238 instant download after payment.

Traditional interpretations to the British Empire’s emerging success & expansion has long overshadowed the deep uncertainty that marked its initial entanglement with India. In September 1615, Thomas Roe—Britain’s first ambassador to the Mughal Empire—made landfall on the western coast of India. Roe entered the court of Jahangir, “conqueror of the world,” one of immense wealth, power, & culture that looked askance at the representative of a precarious & distant island nation. Though London was at the height of the Renaissance—the era of Shakespeare, Jonson, & Donne—financial strife & fragile powerbases presented risk & uncertainty at every turn. 

What followed in India was a turning-point in history, a story of palace intrigue, scandal, & mutual incomprehension that unfolds as global trade begins to stretch from Russia to Virginia, from West Africa to the Spice Islands of Indonesia. 

Using an incisive blend of Indian & British records, & exploring the art, literature, sights, & sounds of Elizabethan London & Imperial India, Das portrays the nuances of cultural & national collision on an individual & human level. The result is a rich & radical challenge to our understanding of Britain & its early empire—and a cogent reminder of the dangers of distortion in the history books of the victors.