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This volume discusses the various socio-economic and political processes that evolved over centuries in the vast coastal fringes of India and out of the circuits of the Indian Ocean, ultimately giving the littoral zones the distinctive consciousness and identity of Maritime India.

This book dwells upon a wide range of issues, including the nature of maritime trade of the Sassanids with India; the impact of maritime trade on the political processes of Goa; the social processes linked with the settlements of foreign merchant groups in India; the nature of the Portuguese expansion in coastal India; and the nuances of political assertions over maritime centres of exchange and their hinterlands.

The work also discusses in some detail the repercussions of the Ottoman expansion into the Indian Ocean, the impact of Portuguese commercial expansion on the traditional Muslim merchants of Kerala, the changing methods of information-networking between coastal India and the Mediterranean, the burgeoning of Portuguese power units in Bengal, and the role of private traders in the structure and the functioning of Estado da India.

These painstakingly researched and immensely erudite essays that make up the volume are essential reading for scholars and students for an understanding of Indian history in general and its maritime history in particular.