Description
Book SynopsisNo Birds of Passage explores the remarkable business success of three Gujarati Muslim commercial castes: the Bohras, Khojas, and Memons. Often stereotyped as “Westernized” and as Hindus in all but name, these groups are better seen as having developed a distinctive Muslim capitalism, in which religious and commercial prerogatives are inseparable.
Trade ReviewThis is an audacious scholarly conversation between received categories of classical political economy and South Asian Islam that is likely to provoke debate among specialists in the field. For the general student of history however, it is a book that demands close attention for its outstanding contributions to the craft, both in its expansive approach toward the archive as in its deft interweaving of religion, culture and politics within the complex terrain of capitalist enterprise and law. The structure, prose and narrative richness of the book are likely to ensure a life for it outside the scholarly niche of economic history. -- Madhumita Mazumdar * Telegraph India *
No Birds of Passage is a brilliant and strikingly innovative contribution to the history of trade and diaspora in the Indian Ocean. Based on an impressive array of sources, it tells a compelling story about the emergence of a distinctive form of Muslim capitalism that continues to shape the region today. -- Sunil Amrith, author of
Unruly WatersThe intersection of community, caste, and capitalism is a matter of abiding interest for South Asian historians of both the early modern and modern periods. Michael O’Sullivan’s well-documented and closely argued work on Gujarati Muslim entrepreneurs over two centuries is a significant intervention in this field. It merits a wide readership, and is also certain to provoke debates well beyond the confines of South Asian studies. -- Sanjay Subrahmanyam, author of
Europe’s IndiaThis sophisticated and fine-grained case study is a model of how to write revisionist economic histories that resonate with the experiences of people in most of the world.
No Birds of Passage succeeds precisely because its conceptual apparatus is built on giving endogenous institutions their due, bringing together a range of sources in multiple languages, and openly embracing paradoxes without which this story of Muslim capitalism would have remained illegible. This is an exciting contribution to the burgeoning global histories of capitalism. -- Mrinalini Sinha, author of
Specters of Mother IndiaA major contribution to South Asian history. O’Sullivan’s sweeping account of Gujarati Muslim business communities is more than a business history. It is an impressive examination of how the Khojas, Bohras, and Memons reshaped community corporate identities through their interactions with the colonial state, Indian nationalism, Muslim politics, and postcolonial regimes. -- Douglas E. Haynes, author of
Small Town Capitalism in Western IndiaThis is a landmark work of scholarship, meticulously recovering the transimperial worldviews of Gujarati Muslim business communities both before and after the age of imperial capitalism. Attentive to historical asymmetries of race and sovereignty, O’Sullivan’s dynamic and capacious study will inform future work on imperial and postcolonial economic history as well as on the social-religious logics of capital accumulation. -- Manu Goswami, author of
Producing India
