| Description |
1 online resource (307 pages) |
| Series |
Routledge Approaches to History Ser |
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Routledge Approaches to History Ser
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| Contents |
Cover; Half Title; Series Page; Title; Copyright; Contents; List of figures, tables and maps; Foreword; Acknowledgements; 1 Global phenomenon, local varieties; Across Afro-Eurasia; The life of the cowrie mollusc; Why Cypraea moneta? And why in the Maldives?; Money and cowrie shells becoming money; World history: global and local; Scholarship, sources and structure; 2 The Maldives: procurement and export; The Maldives: a history; Dried fish and coir rope; Cowrie shells: in the eyes of the Arabs; Ibn Battuta in the Maldives; Chinese accounts; A great emporium for all parts." |
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The cowrie trade in the eyes of François Pyrard3 India: in the beginning; Non-monetary use of cowrie shells; Cowrie money: early records; Pala and Sena: from coins to cowrie money; From coast to inland: the village of Alagum; Tanka and cowries; Cowrie money: European accounts; Assam; Northern India; Cowrie money in the Gentoo Code; British India: acknowledgement and replacement; Collecting and counting cowries in Sylhet; A fortune made through cowries; 4 Southeast Asia: intra-Asian interactions; Cowrie money in Thai inscriptions; The Chiang Mai Chronicle; The laws of King Mengrai |
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The Siamese-Yunnan connectionCowrie money in Southeast Asia: Tomè Pires; The Chinese accounts; 5 Yunnan: an Indian influence in the Southeast Asian-Chinese world; From Southeast Asia to a Chinese province; Cowrie shells in early Yunnan: nature and source; Cowrie money in Mongol Yunnan; Cowries from Jiangnan (the Yangzi Delta); Illegal cowries; Routes linking Bengal, coastal mainland Southeast Asia and Yunnan; Functions of cowrie money; The collapse: global and local; 6 Why not in early China?; Where did cowries come from?; Mortuary cowries; Cowrie shells as money in early China |
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Cowries not as money!Why didn't cowries become money?; Bronze cowries: one of China's earliest monies; In South China: the case of Sanxingdui; Mouth-cowries and hand-cowries; 7 West Africa: connecting the worlds, old and new; When did cowrie shells reach Africa?; The routes from the Maldives to West Africa; Cowrie money: prior to the fourteenth century; The cowrie money zone: prior to 1500; The cowrie money zone: 1500-1900; The Portuguese; The Dutch and English; Cowries for slaves: the eighteenth century; The Hannibal; Cowries for palm oil: the nineteenth century; Local agents |
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The making of the Kingdom of Dahomey: cowries, slaves and palm oilCounting cowries: local and global?; Cowrie money in East Africa; The end of the cowrie trade; 8 The Pacific Islands and North America: out of the Bengali system; Independent monetary origin; Cowrie use in New Guinea; Cowrie money in the Kapauku; Contact and collapse; Shells and shell money in North America; An oyster crusade" in New Netherland; Wampum in California: Ernest Ingersoll's account; Was wampum used as money or not?; A means of exchange in colonial Virginia?: Cowrie shells from Africa; 9 More than just money |
| Summary |
Originating in the sea, especially in the waters surrounding the low-lying islands of the Maldives, Cypraea moneta (sometimes confused with Cypraea annulus) was transported to various parts of Afro-Eurasia in the prehistoric era, and in many cases, it was gradually transformed into a form of money in various societies for a long span of time. Yang provides a global examination of cowrie money within and beyond Afro-Eurasia from the archaeological period to the early twentieth century. By focusing on cowrie money in Indian, Chinese, Southeast Asian and West African societies and shell money in Pacific and North American societies, Yang synthsises and illustrates the economic and cultural connections, networks and interactions over a longue durée and in a cross-regional context. Analysing locally varied experiences of cowrie money from a global perspective, Yang argued that cowrie money was the first global money that shaped Afro-Eurasian societies both individually and collectively. He proposes a paradigm of the cowrie money world that engages local, regional, transregional and global themes |
| Notes |
Aesthetics, wealth, fertility and protection |
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Print version record |
| Subject |
Shell money.
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Cowries.
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Money -- History
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Africa.
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China.
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Currency.
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Glocal.
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India.
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Slave Trade.
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Southeast Asia.
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World History.
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Commerce
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Cowries
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Money
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Shell money
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Indian Ocean Region -- Commerce -- History
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Indian Ocean Region
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| Genre/Form |
History
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9780429952340 |
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0429952341 |
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9780429952333 |
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0429952333 |
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9780429952326 |
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0429952325 |
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9780429489587 |
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0429489587 |
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