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Unfamiliar terms:
Malacca Strait - I can’t believe I didn’t know the name of this strait, or how important it is in transit between the Indian and Pacific oceans. I thought it was funny because its homonym, malaka, is a swear word in Greek that my old boss used to call me a lot.
Vasco da Gama- Never heard of this guy. I guess he gets overshadowed by the likes of Columbus and Magellan, but his rounding of the Cape of Good Hope seems nearly as important.
Mughals - Had heard of these guys mentioned in passing, but didn’t know much about them. Apparently they had gunpowder, which put them at a great advantage over everyone else.
BONUS: Canaille - I think this might have been the word we were looking for last week- French, referring to the unconscious laboring classes. I’m not sure. But it seems like a good candidate and it was bothering me so I looked it up.
What I Learned:
I was confused by last week’s reading which stated that before the Portuguese arrived, trade networks were not based on any one imperial monopoly on violence. Abu-Lughod’s piece got into the detail of this, arguing that the Portuguese were “original” in their method of enforcing trade mercantilism with their army. The previous “Muslim lake” was held together by mutual treaties between individual city states.
I found this interesting, especially relating to Ludden’s statement that “territorial elites” consolidated power over “networks of mobility.” This framing is really helpful, and although it now seems obvious, I suppose I always imagined power as being consolidated over land and maybe expanses of sea. But it really was always about “mobility,” the valuable aspect being the lanes of commerce and individual movement. Ludden writes that these networks grew during the mediaeval and early modern periods, and with them the power of sultans, emirs and kings.
Why, then, did no ruler before the Portuguese seek to expand their influence militarily over the mobility routes of the Indian Ocean? Even the Sultan of Zanzibar tolerated minimal control over ports in the region- his realm was more a trade confederation than a true “empire.” I imagine this has something to do with the difficulty of mobilizing a navy during unfavorable monsoons.
It’s also interesting how Ludden continues this framing up to the present day, when dealing with the British, and later American and Asian imperial/commercial projects. His division between the “civilized” and “wild” areas that are alternatively ripe for conquest or terrifying to the imperial peoples. His depiction of the American attitude towards Afghanistan almost mirrors the relationship between the coastal, Islamized East African traders and their animist counterparts in the mountains, albeit a little more violent. Overall, Ludden introduces a few useful ways of looking at the area past the historically constructed and often fluctuating divisions of borders and nations.