Description
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS The Marathas 1600 1818 by Stewart Gordon
In this book Dr Stewart Gordon presents a comprehensive history of one of the most colourful and leastunderstood kingdoms of India: the Maratha Empire. The empire was founded by Shivaji in the midseventeenth century spread across most of India during the following century and was conquered by the British in the nineteenth century. Using administrative documents of the Maratha polity family papers and Histories of the Empire Stewart Gordon explores the origin of the Marathas their emergence as elite families patterns of loyalty and strategies for maintaining legitimacy. He traces how the armies developed into Europeanstyle infantry and artillery and assesses the economics that funded the polity especially taxation and credit. Finally the author considers the lasting effects the empire had on administrations law and trade patterns of Central India Gujarat and Maharashtra.