Caravans: Punjabi Khatri Merchants On the Silk Road

by Scott C. Levi, Gurcharan Das (Intro.)

Caravans tells the fascinating story of countless Punjabi Khatri merchants who built great business empires through their ingenuity and spirit of adventure. Operating during the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, these merchants risked everything and travelled across Afghanistan, Central Asia, Iran and Russia. They used sophisticated techniques to convert a modest amount of merchandise into vast portfolios for trade and moneylending ventures. Caravans challenges the belief that the rising tide of European trade in the Indian Ocean usurped the overland Silk Road trade, and demonstrates how thousands of Punjabis created a booming market in Central Asia at precisely this historical moment.

Genres: History, Business, India

256 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2016

About the author

A specialist of the social and economic history of early modern Central Asia, Scott Levi is professor of history at Ohio State University.

Reviews

[Pradeep Kumbhashi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Title looked interesting. First few pages are captivating, it loses it's charm after that.
Introduction by Gurucharan Das is the best part of the book.

This is not what I was looking for.