European Adventurers in North India

Name: European Adventurers in North India
Brand: Taylor & Francis

Taylor & Francis

This book explores how European, particularly French, adventurers shaped early modern India. It highlights the significant contributions of these adventurers in social, political, economic, and intellectual life of north India in the 18th and the 19th centuries. The author examines how the French adventurers played a key role in bringing Western science and ideas to a polity in flux. He examines the role of individuals like Ren\u00E9 Madec, Sombre, De Boigne, Perron, Gentil, Canaple, Delamarr, Sonson, and Pedrose, who made instrumental contributions in modernising armies of pre-modern states in South Asia. The volume also underlines how French adventurers\u2019 commercial networks developing from their enterprises opened up markets in the heartlands of north India for European consumers. Further, it brings to the fore intellectual pursuits of the leading French figures such as Anquetil Duperron, Polier, Gentil, De Boigne, and Perron, whose engagement with Indian literature opened a n.