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The Company Fortress : Military Engineering and the Dutch East India Company in South Asia, 1638-1795 / Erik Odegard.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Colonial and Global History through Dutch Sources ; 4Publisher: Leiden : Leiden University Press, [2020]Copyright date: 2020Description: 1 online resource (308 p.) : 12 tables, 32 mapsContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9789400603806
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 355.7095493 23/eng/20220714
LOC classification:
  • UG432.S683
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Table of Contents -- Maps and Images -- Tables -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Chapter 1 Artillery Fortification at Home and Abroad -- Chapter 2 “A Company of Commerce, but also of State” The VOC in South Asia -- Chapter 3 The Van Goens System Building the Fortifications, 1650-1675 -- Chapter 4 Criticism and Construction: Debating and Building the Forts, 1675-1700 -- Chapter 5 Mughal Decline and the Company: from Chowghat to Bedara 1717-1759 -- Chapter 6 After Bedara: Attempting to Improve Defenses, 1759-1780 -- Chapter 7 A Plague of Engineers: Ceylon 1780-1789 -- Chapter 8 The Military Committee The Generality Intervenes, 1787-1792 -- Chapter 9 Fall of a Fortress -- Conclusion -- Appendix 1 Some Remarks on Terminology and Illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary: The remains of Dutch East India Company forts are scattered throughout littoral Asia and Africa. But how important were the specific characteristics of European bastion-trace fortifications to Early-Modern European expansion? Was European fortification design as important for Early-Modern expansion as has been argued? This book takes on these questions by studying the system of fortifications built and maintained by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in present-day India and Sri Lanka. It uncovers the stories of the forts and their designers, arguing that many of these engineers were in fact amateurs and their creations contained serious flaws. Subsequent engineers were hampered by their disagreement over fortification design: there proved not to be a single “European school” of fortification design. The study questions the importance of fortification design for European expansion, shows the relationship between siege and naval warfare, and highlights changing perceptions by the VOC of the capabilities of new polities in India in the late eighteenth century.

Frontmatter -- Table of Contents -- Maps and Images -- Tables -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Chapter 1 Artillery Fortification at Home and Abroad -- Chapter 2 “A Company of Commerce, but also of State” The VOC in South Asia -- Chapter 3 The Van Goens System Building the Fortifications, 1650-1675 -- Chapter 4 Criticism and Construction: Debating and Building the Forts, 1675-1700 -- Chapter 5 Mughal Decline and the Company: from Chowghat to Bedara 1717-1759 -- Chapter 6 After Bedara: Attempting to Improve Defenses, 1759-1780 -- Chapter 7 A Plague of Engineers: Ceylon 1780-1789 -- Chapter 8 The Military Committee The Generality Intervenes, 1787-1792 -- Chapter 9 Fall of a Fortress -- Conclusion -- Appendix 1 Some Remarks on Terminology and Illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Bibliography -- Index

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The remains of Dutch East India Company forts are scattered throughout littoral Asia and Africa. But how important were the specific characteristics of European bastion-trace fortifications to Early-Modern European expansion? Was European fortification design as important for Early-Modern expansion as has been argued? This book takes on these questions by studying the system of fortifications built and maintained by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in present-day India and Sri Lanka. It uncovers the stories of the forts and their designers, arguing that many of these engineers were in fact amateurs and their creations contained serious flaws. Subsequent engineers were hampered by their disagreement over fortification design: there proved not to be a single “European school” of fortification design. The study questions the importance of fortification design for European expansion, shows the relationship between siege and naval warfare, and highlights changing perceptions by the VOC of the capabilities of new polities in India in the late eighteenth century.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 19. Oct 2024)