This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Subrahmanyam, S. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Further thoughts on an enigma

The tortuous life of Nicolò Manucci, 1638–c. 1720

Sanjay Subrahmanyam is at Department of History, University of California at Los Angeles

The article seeks to re-examine the career and work of a celebrated ‘adventurer’ of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, the Venetian Nicolò Manucci (1638–c. 1720). Manucci's work, translated into English in the early twentieth century by William Irvine of the Indian Civil Service, but never published in the original, has evoked much controversy over the years. Some have treated it as a valuable and authentic source on events in Mughal India and elsewhere, while others—notably historians of music and culture—have pointed to its flagrant inaccuracies and exaggerations. In recent times, some have also claimed for it the status of a history of popular perceptions of the Mughal dynasty. This article returns, as it were, to the sources, looking to the original manuscripts that Manucci left, as well as recent and valuable research conducted on him by Italian scholars. A complex portrait emerges of a tortuous and fascinating career in which alienation is a central theme.

Indian Economic & Social History Review, Vol. 45, No. 1, 35-76 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/001946460704500102


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?