Hooghly: The Global History of a River

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A lyrical history of one of India's great rivers the entry-point of maritime commercial colonialism, and the life- sustaining waterway of Bengal and its former capital, Calcutta.

The Hooghly, a distributary of the Ganges flowing south to the Bay of Bengal, is now little known outside of India. Yet for centuries it was a river of truly global significance attracting merchants. missionaries, mercenaries, statesmen, labourers and others from Europe. Asia and beyond. Hooghly seeks to restore the waterway to the heart of global history. Focusing in turn on the role of and competition between those who struggled to control the river the Portuguese, the Mughals, the Dutch, the French and finally the British, who built their imperial capital. Calcutta, on its banks - the author considers how the Hooghly was integrated into global networks of encounter and exchange, and the dramatic consequences that ensued.

Travelling up and down the river. Robert Ivermee explores themes of enduring concern, among them the dynamics of modern capitalism and the power of large corporations: migration and human trafficking the role of new technologies in revolutionizing social relations, and the human impact natural on world. the The Hooghly's global history. he concludes may offer lessons for India as it emerges as a world superpower.A lyrical history of one of India's great rivers the entry-point of maritime commercial colonialism, and the life- sustaining waterway of Bengal and its former capital, Calcutta.

The Hooghly, a distributary of the Ganges flowing south to the Bay of Bengal, is now little known outside of India. Yet for centuries it was a river of truly global significance attracting merchants. missionaries, mercenaries, statesmen, labourers and others from Europe. Asia and beyond. Hooghly seeks to restore the waterway to the heart of global history. Focusing in turn on the role of and competition between those who struggled to control the river the Portuguese, the Mughals, the Dutch, the French and finally the British, who built their imperial capital. Calcutta, on its banks - the author considers how the Hooghly was integrated into global networks of encounter and exchange, and the dramatic consequences that ensued.

Travelling up and down the river. Robert Ivermee explores themes of enduring concern, among them the dynamics of modern capitalism and the power of large corporations: migration and human trafficking the role of new technologies in revolutionizing social relations, and the human impact natural on world. the The Hooghly's global history. he concludes may offer lessons for India as it emerges as a world superpower.

ROBERT IVERMEE is a global and imperial historian focused on colonialism in South Asia. He works in higher education management at SOAS University of London and teaches at the Catholic University of Paris.

The Hooghly River, a distributary of the Ganges, winds its way into the Bay of Bengal through the western deltaic flats of its parent stream. Today, it is unlikely to be considered one of the great rivers of the world: at about 500 kilometres, its length is modest; lacking natural depth, it has relied since the 1970s on waters dammed and distributed from the Ganges, like a middle-aged child dependent on the resources of an ageing mother. There was a time, however, when the Hooghly was a waterway of truly global significance, attracting merchants, missionaries, states- men, soldiers, labourers, and others from Asia, Europe, and elsewhere. As the principal artery between lower and upper Bengal, it facilitated travel and communication between the coast and locations inland. Its tributaries and distributaries afforded access to deltaic Bengal, the Gangetic plain, and the Mughal heartland of Hindustan, linking northern and eastern India with territories across the Indian Ocean and beyond.

This book shines a light on the remarkable period when the Hooghly was at the centre of global history. From the sixteenth century, successive external parties among them Portuguese, Mughal, Dutch, British, French, and Danish- were drawn to the river. The Hooghly came to be integrated into networks of encounter and exchange spanning different cultures and regions and, at least until the turn of the twentieth century, was renowned not only in Bengal and India but across the world.