| Description |
1 online resource (xiv, 280 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations (some color), maps (some color) |
| Contents |
Sacred origins -- Conquistadors -- Emerald city -- Empires and inquisitors -- Globetrotters -- Emeralds of the shahs -- Tax dodgers and smugglers -- Twilight of imperial emeralds -- Postscript: from British adventurers to today's Esmeralderos |
| Summary |
For the Mughals, Ottomans, and Safavids green was, as it remains for all Muslims, the color of Paradise, reserved for the Prophet Muhammad and his descendants. Tapping a wide range of sources, Kris Lane traces the complex web of global trading networks that funneled emeralds from backland South America to populous Asian capitals between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries. Lane reveals the bloody conquest wars and forced labor regimes that accompanied their production. It is a story of trade, but also of transformations, how members of profoundly different societies at opposite ends of the globe assigned value to a few thousand pounds of imperfectly shiny green rocks |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Emeralds -- Colonies -- Spain -- History
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Emeralds -- Colombia -- History
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Inquisition -- Spain.
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Inquisition -- Portugal
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HISTORY -- Middle East -- General.
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Emeralds
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Inquisition
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Colombia
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Portugal
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Spain
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| Genre/Form |
History
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| ISBN |
9780300164701 |
|
030016470X |
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