A short conclusion ties major findings of Bankrolling Empire to wider understandings of early modern political economy in India, and to the comparative history of such transitions world-wide in that crucial period. Scholars such as Braudel, Wallerstein, Mann, and Goldstone have done major work on this period, and the story of the Mughal Empire, the Jhaveri family, and new political upstarts offered in this book helps to fill important gaps on the world scene. By focusing on how four generations of a single business family interacted with sources of political authority in South Asia, we learn how a major imperial formation atrophied, and the mechanisms by which various smaller successor states relied on finance to emerge in its wake. This work suggests that business leaders like the Jhaveris were not complacent, but maintained a keen eye towards political developments of the day. When opportunities arose, they relied on their expertise and wealth to shape political power. In the twenty-first century, as relationships between private capital and political authority continue to be intertwined, this work reminds us that while politics certainly impacts business, commercial actors often possess greater resources that can reorient the very contours of state power and its capacity to govern.

Throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Flemish women had been active in key stages of cloth production, such as weaving, or other finishing crafts (apart from fulling). However, when the textile industry shifted during the fourteenth century towards guild-controlled production of more expensive woollens, job opportunities for women declined. Their involvement as independent workers became rather restricted. They were gradually pushed towards lower-paid, labour-intensive activities in the preparatory stages of cloth production such as washing, combing, carding and spinning the wool. As no scholar on either side of the English Channel has ever considered the position of immigrant women in the fourteenth century, we are left with several open questions: would this shift in production within the urban industries be one of the push factors? How better off were Flemish women if they emigrated to England (alone or with husbands)? The purpose of this chapter is to examine the economic activities of Flemish women in England, with a specific focus on the textile industry and the ways in which women contributed separately from their male compatriots.

Chapter 3 describes the historical context of the empirical investigations developed in the subsequent chapters. It discusses the emergence, development, and the end of military colonialism in the southern borderlands of the Habsburg Empire. The military frontier was a cost-effective institution to protect both the Habsburg state and Christian Europe against the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. After 1463, the Habsburg regions of Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria were subject to yearly Ottoman attacks with the local estates being hardest hit. The chapter outlines the main political tensions between the Habsburg emperors, local elites, and peasant communities that emerged in the early stages of the adoption of military colonialism through a rich documentation of historical conditions. Some of these tensions we can trace back to the extended negotiations between Ferdinand I (1503-1564) and the local landed estates, who became financially responsible for the maintenance of the military area. The people inhabiting the newly created colonies were freed from serfdom and given land in exchange for military service. The chapter illustrates how military colonialism evolved over time, and describe the types of policies that the imperial authorities adopted to ensure the longevity of this institution in different regional contexts.

This chapter tests formally the legacies of military colonialism on attitudes and norms. Historical qualitative accounts suggest that centuries of restrictions on personal freedom, political rights, and the economic opportunities, alienated people from state institutions. Given the size of family clans, there were few opportunities for inter-clan interactions, which would have fostered horizontal solidarity in the form of reciprocity, cooperation, and equality. The longer existence of family clans in the former military colony made it very hard for the state to win the loyalty of the public, which in turn, endogenously strengthened family networks and distanced them from the central state. Modern-day surveys indicate that people living in the former colony are more attached to their family, trust outsiders less, are less politically engaged, and are more risk-averse.