Abstract: How does periodization apply to the history of warfare? The present lecture explores this question for the Mughal Empire through four spheres of war-making – military adaptation, army organization, management of war, and culture of war. It argues that in all these areas, the Mughal warfare ushered in a new military paradigm in South Asia in the sixteenth century which should be seen as the hallmark of early modernity in military matters in this part of the world. It was largely different from the medieval military tendencies till the fifteenth century on the one hand and colonial modern forms of war since the mid-eighteenth century on the other.
Dr. Pratyay Nath is an Associate Professor of History at Ashoka University. He is the author of Climate of Conquest: War, Environment, and Empire in Mughal North India (OUP, 2019) and the co-editor of The Early Modern in South Asia: Querying Modernity, Periodization, and History (CUP, 2022). He is one of the editors of The Medieval History Journal. He writes in English and Bangla.
