Caravans

Indian Merchants on the Silk Road
By: Scott C. Levi

The great adventure of the Multani merchants on the Silk Road to ancient Asia

Caravans tells the fascinating story of tens of thousands of intrepid merchants who risked everything to travel great distances and spend years of their lives pursuing their fortunes in foreign lands.

From the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, these merchants lived as ‘guests’ in cities and villages across Afghanistan, Central Asia, Iran and Russia. Scott C. Levi examines the sophisticated techniques they used to convert a modest amount of merchandise into vast portfolios of trade and moneylending ventures. At precisely the same historical moment that the rising European trade in the Indian Ocean usurped the overland ‘Silk Road’ trade, the Multani merchants began making their way to Central Asia, linking the early modern Indian and Central Asian economies closer together than ever before.

This elegantly written, meticulously researched book brings a forgotten chapter of India’s business history to life. Caravans is the seventh volume in The Story of Indian Business series edited by Gurcharan Das.

Scott C. Levi is Associate Professor of Central Asian History at Ohio State University.