Séance organisée par : Université Paris-Cité

NB: la séance aura lieu de 17h30 à 19h à l’Université Paris-Cité, bâtiment Olympe de gouges (place Paul Ricoeur, 75013 Paris), salle 830.

When Thomas Roe arrived in India in 1616 as James I’s first ambassador
to the Mughal Empire, the English barely had a toehold in the
subcontinent. Their understanding of South Asian trade and India was
sketchy at best, and, to the Mughals, they were minor players on a
very large stage. Roe was representing a kingdom that was beset by
financial woes and deeply conflicted about its identity as a unified
‘Great Britain’ under the Stuart monarchy. Meanwhile, the court he
entered in India was wealthy and cultured, its dominion widely
considered to be one of the greatest and richest empires of the world.
This book offers a fascinating history of Roe’s four years in India,
an insider’s view of a Britain in the making, a country whose imperial
seeds were just being sown. It is a story of palace intrigue and
scandal, lotteries and wagers that unfolds as global trade begins to
stretch from Russia to Virginia, from West Africa to the Spice Islands
of Indonesia. The book explores the art, literature, sights and sounds of Jacobean London and Imperial India. It reveals Thomas Roe’s time in the Mughal Empire to be a turning point in history, and offers a rich and radical challenge to our understanding of Britain and its early empire.

Discutante: Ladan Niayesh

 

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