The Marathas 1600-1818

Author: Stewart GordonPublisher: Cambridge University pressYear: 2005Language: EnglishPages: 217ISBN/UPC (if available): 81-7596-039-6 DescriptionIn this volume in The New Cambridge History of India, Dr Stewart Gordon presents a new comprehensive history of one of the most colorful and least understood kingdoms of India: the Maratha polity. The kingdom was founded by Shivaji in the mid-seventeenth century and spread across much of India during the following century. It was subsequently conquered by the British in the nineteenth century, but none the less provided the basis for the formation of many princely states.Since independence a huge mass of administrative documents of the Maratha polity and many important family papers have become available to scholars. Stewart Gordon draws on this material to explore the origin of the Marathas in the Muslim kingdoms of the Deccan, their emergence as elite families, patterns of loyalty, and strategies for maintaining legitimacy. He traces how th