New Book: University of California Press, 2016

September 19, 2016, 4:00-6:00 pm at the Hagop Kevorkian Center (255 Sullivan Street, New York, NY)

Moderated by Manu Goswami (Associate Professor of History) and Arang Keshavarzian (Associate Professor of Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies)

Book Description: What is the relationship between trafficking and free trade? Is trafficking the perfection or the perversion of free trade? Trafficking occurs thousands of times each day at borders throughout the world, yet we have come to perceive it as something quite extraordinary. How did this happen, and what role does trafficking play in capitalism? To answer these questions, Johan Mathew traces the hidden networks that operated across the Arabian Sea in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Following the entangled history of trafficking and capitalism, he explores how the Arabian Sea reveals the gaps that haunt political borders and undermine economic models. Ultimately, he shows how capitalism was forged at the margins of the free market, where governments intervened, and traffickers turned a profit.

Johan Mathew is an Assistant Professor of History and Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.