The Company Fortress
eBook - PDF

The Company Fortress

Military Engineering and the Dutch East India Company in South Asia, 1638-1795

  1. 310 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The Company Fortress

Military Engineering and the Dutch East India Company in South Asia, 1638-1795

About this book

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? The Company Fortress takes on this question 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.

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Yes, you can access The Company Fortress by Erik Odegard in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Military & Maritime History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

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