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New Cambridge History of India #2.4
The New Cambridge History of India, Volume 2, Part 4: The Marathas, 1600-1818
In this book, Dr. Stewart Gordon presents the first comprehensive history of the Maratha polity, which was an important regional kingdom in the seventeenth century and the largest political entity of eighteenth century India. He focuses on the origins of the elite families, problems of legitimacy and loyalty, military organization and change, and the development of administration, tax collection and religious patronage. Through the use of a vast array of documents, the author also gives a picture of everyday life in the Maratha polity.
220 pages, Hardcover
First published September 24, 1993
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About the author
Stewart N. Gordon
28 books8 followersStewart N. Gordon is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 28, 2022
This is a very good introduction to the Maratha history. Lucid and concise. One doesn't get bored at all.
April 5, 2020
The author did an admirable job of making sense out of a complex period in Indian history. This is a short book, but it seems to cover all the important elements of the time and place. The author shifts level of detail from time to time, from the local level to the level of inter-state activities, using the various levels of detail to illustrate his arguments, and he does it well. I am very glad I read this book, even though it is of pretty limited relevance to me, living in eastern Ontario in 21st century Canada.
February 23, 2025
From its emergence in the late seventeenth century until its defeat in the early nineteenth century, the kingdom of the Marathas was one of the major powers on the Indian subcontinent. Established by Shivaji in 1674, it survived campaigns by the then-dominant Mughal Empire to rule over much of western and central India during the eighteenth century. As such it was the last serious opposition the British faced to the establishment of their dominance over the Indian subcontinent, with their independence in the early nineteenth century lost only after a series of wars that brought most of their territory under direct British rule and left the remnants subject to the quasi-governmental control of the British East India Company, the forerunner to the Raj.
For all of their prominence in the subcontinent’s history and in Indian political culture today, the Marathas are too often overshadowed in the Western understanding of India’s history by their Mughal counterparts and their British successors. Stewart Gordon’s book serves as an effective remedy to this by providing an accessible overview of the political and military history of the polity for his readers. It’s one that provides a narrative of its rulers and conquests while analyzing the geopolitics and the administrative and military institutions that turned the aspirations of its rulers into reality. The formation of the Maratha state and its political economy comprise a major part of his account, as this allows him to explain both the rise of the Marathas and how the elements in it that contributed to its success in the late seventeenth century proved less beneficial with the changes in warfare that were taking place by the mid-eighteenth century.
As Gordon explains, the Marathas’ military success lay in the emergence of a new style of warfare in the early seventeenth century. Known as bargir-giri, it was a form of guerrilla warfare that avoided pitched battle with an enemy’s main force in favor of using light cavalry to cut off their supply lines and hit vulnerable targets elsewhere. This was an especially effective approach in dealing with the large, slow-moving armies employed by the Mughals, the Bijapurs, or the other kingdoms in power at that time, making the conquest of the Deccan Plateau prohibitively difficult. The Bijapur in particular found it easier to recruit Maratha military families into their service and exert control through them, albeit not always successfully
It was the chaos created by the death of the Bijapur king in 1656 and the Mughal Empire’s invasion of the Bijapur Sultanate the following year which gave Shivaji, the rebellious son of a local ruler, the opening to build a new polity. Gordon’s devotes considerable space in his text to explaining how Shivaji addressed the challenges of constructing both his authority and legitimacy, which were just as essential to establishing the new Maratha kingdom as were his successes on the battlefield. While his efforts failed to prevent either the factionalization of his court after his death in 1680 or the Mughal offensives that followed over the next quarter century, they proved enduring enough to serve as the foundation for the Marathas’ revival in the eighteenth century. As their polity expanded, the Marathas found it necessary to alter their administrative system in order to better maintain their growing military. Effective as it was to disrupting Mughal conquest, bargir-giri was poorly suited for conquering and holding new territories, which required new, more professional armies. To fund them, the Marathas shifted from a reliance on land grants to cash, which required the development of new revenue tools and fiscal structures.
The changing nature of Maratha warfare played to the martial strengths of the Europeans, the expansion of whose presence in India coincided with the growth of the Maratha Confederacy. The growing importance of artillery on the Indian battlefield, for example, made the Europeans’ expertise in that arm especially prized, while improvements in muskets and the tactics for using them gave the infantry a greater role than before. Hiring Europeans to train and fight alongside Maratha armies provided the most rapid means of incorporating these weapons into their forces, accelerating their transformation. The growing adoption of European-style warfare, however, meant that the Marathas were increasingly waging wars on European terms – and in any such struggle, the Europeans would enjoy an inherent advantage.
Despite this, it took three wars before the British were able to fully subjugate the Maratha state. That they subsequently modeled their administrative institutions after those the Marathas created reflected their effectiveness as much as the desire for a smooth assumption of power. It’s a detail that also points to the value of Gordon’s book as an introduction to an important era in India’s history. While the absence of similarly detailed coverage of Maratha society and culture in the text is regrettable and its engagement with the historiography of his subject dates his book in several respects, it still serves as an effective starting point for those wanting to learn about this poorly understood kingdom and its impact on Indian history.
For all of their prominence in the subcontinent’s history and in Indian political culture today, the Marathas are too often overshadowed in the Western understanding of India’s history by their Mughal counterparts and their British successors. Stewart Gordon’s book serves as an effective remedy to this by providing an accessible overview of the political and military history of the polity for his readers. It’s one that provides a narrative of its rulers and conquests while analyzing the geopolitics and the administrative and military institutions that turned the aspirations of its rulers into reality. The formation of the Maratha state and its political economy comprise a major part of his account, as this allows him to explain both the rise of the Marathas and how the elements in it that contributed to its success in the late seventeenth century proved less beneficial with the changes in warfare that were taking place by the mid-eighteenth century.
As Gordon explains, the Marathas’ military success lay in the emergence of a new style of warfare in the early seventeenth century. Known as bargir-giri, it was a form of guerrilla warfare that avoided pitched battle with an enemy’s main force in favor of using light cavalry to cut off their supply lines and hit vulnerable targets elsewhere. This was an especially effective approach in dealing with the large, slow-moving armies employed by the Mughals, the Bijapurs, or the other kingdoms in power at that time, making the conquest of the Deccan Plateau prohibitively difficult. The Bijapur in particular found it easier to recruit Maratha military families into their service and exert control through them, albeit not always successfully
It was the chaos created by the death of the Bijapur king in 1656 and the Mughal Empire’s invasion of the Bijapur Sultanate the following year which gave Shivaji, the rebellious son of a local ruler, the opening to build a new polity. Gordon’s devotes considerable space in his text to explaining how Shivaji addressed the challenges of constructing both his authority and legitimacy, which were just as essential to establishing the new Maratha kingdom as were his successes on the battlefield. While his efforts failed to prevent either the factionalization of his court after his death in 1680 or the Mughal offensives that followed over the next quarter century, they proved enduring enough to serve as the foundation for the Marathas’ revival in the eighteenth century. As their polity expanded, the Marathas found it necessary to alter their administrative system in order to better maintain their growing military. Effective as it was to disrupting Mughal conquest, bargir-giri was poorly suited for conquering and holding new territories, which required new, more professional armies. To fund them, the Marathas shifted from a reliance on land grants to cash, which required the development of new revenue tools and fiscal structures.
The changing nature of Maratha warfare played to the martial strengths of the Europeans, the expansion of whose presence in India coincided with the growth of the Maratha Confederacy. The growing importance of artillery on the Indian battlefield, for example, made the Europeans’ expertise in that arm especially prized, while improvements in muskets and the tactics for using them gave the infantry a greater role than before. Hiring Europeans to train and fight alongside Maratha armies provided the most rapid means of incorporating these weapons into their forces, accelerating their transformation. The growing adoption of European-style warfare, however, meant that the Marathas were increasingly waging wars on European terms – and in any such struggle, the Europeans would enjoy an inherent advantage.
Despite this, it took three wars before the British were able to fully subjugate the Maratha state. That they subsequently modeled their administrative institutions after those the Marathas created reflected their effectiveness as much as the desire for a smooth assumption of power. It’s a detail that also points to the value of Gordon’s book as an introduction to an important era in India’s history. While the absence of similarly detailed coverage of Maratha society and culture in the text is regrettable and its engagement with the historiography of his subject dates his book in several respects, it still serves as an effective starting point for those wanting to learn about this poorly understood kingdom and its impact on Indian history.
February 1, 2025
Good summary of an important part of Indian history. More of a summary than an analysis, but that’s me being biased for how short the book is. Marathas have always interested me, and I was thrilled my friend found this specific of a topic not entirely tied to British takeover (which is always the problem with anything written after 1700).
January 1, 2018
One of the best histories of the Marathas. Non-glorificatory and straight.
July 10, 2018
Many books have been written about the Marathas and some of the best are in Marathi written by Maharashtrian historians. Yet this short one by historian Stewart Gordon written as part of the Cambridge series on the history of India is a worthy addition to the annals on the subject. Less a chronological recounting of the events in the timespan, Mr Gordon focusses more on the socio-political and military contexts of the time as an explanation for as well as for the vagaries of Maratha fortunes across the two centuries. He traces the significant milestones and eras in Maratha history-he rise of Shahji and Shivaji, the civil strife after Shivaji’s death, the rise to power of Shahu and the Peshwas, the eventual decline of the Marathas in the face of British determination and chicanery- along with an erudite explanation of the ever-shifting geo-political milieu and affairs in the Mughal dominions that played an important part in influencing and shaping the Marathas’ destinies. Also admirably explained is the rise of the prominent families that like the Gaekwads, Holkars, Scindias and Bhosale’s that hold some political influence to this day. Along the way Mr. Gordon also dispels some myths for example the fact that the Maratha “Empire” was not really an empire in the way it is commonly understood- centrally administered and ruled by an all-powerful emperor or king- but rather a federation of sorts with administrative structure borrowed largely from the many Bahmani kingdoms that preceded the Marathas ( and which also formed the basis of the British colonial bureaucratic structure). My only complaint is that a text of this nature should have appended a chronology of key events as well as genealogies of key families as a useful reference. Save for that it is a splendid read albeit only for the serious scholar.
August 31, 2024
3.5.
Traces how elite families and loyalty shaped the Maratha polity, arguing that the period was one of consolidation and centralization throughout much of the subcontinent as Maratha influence spread northeast from southern Maharashtra. Lifeless writing doesn’t do justice to the court intrigues and factionalism that defined the era. Names also tend to fly by too quickly, so it can be hard to keep track of alliances, splits, and geopolitics. Useful as a reference that lists power struggles between kings, peshwas, and elite families, but the narrative is hard to follow at times.
Traces how elite families and loyalty shaped the Maratha polity, arguing that the period was one of consolidation and centralization throughout much of the subcontinent as Maratha influence spread northeast from southern Maharashtra. Lifeless writing doesn’t do justice to the court intrigues and factionalism that defined the era. Names also tend to fly by too quickly, so it can be hard to keep track of alliances, splits, and geopolitics. Useful as a reference that lists power struggles between kings, peshwas, and elite families, but the narrative is hard to follow at times.
June 2, 2023
This is the way history should be written.
This book discusses not only the historical events, but also the motivations of the key players and the resources that they have available. The conclusion is a marvelous summary of major themes and trends.
This book discusses not only the historical events, but also the motivations of the key players and the resources that they have available. The conclusion is a marvelous summary of major themes and trends.
June 14, 2022
Good and informative but a little too descriptive in some places.
October 24, 2022
Well chronicled, easy reading, but this is biased towards the perspective of the British Raj. As a alternative, obe needs to read a counter version of an Indian historian
March 18, 2025
Thoroughly academic and nuanced take of the Maratha polity. Highly recommend it to folks wanting to get familiar with their culture or other curious minds.
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March 27, 2025Nyc
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews