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The merchant houses of Mocha

Name: The merchant houses of Mocha
Author: Nancy Um

Nancy Um

30 June 2009

Paperback

€46.33

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Book Synopsis

Gaining prominence as a seaport under the Ottomans in the mid-1500s, the city of Mocha on the Red Sea coast of Yemen pulsed with maritime commerce. Its very name became synonymous with Yemen's most important revenue-producing crop -- coffee. After the imams of the Qasimi dynasty ousted the Ottomans in 1635, Mocha's trade turned eastward toward the Indian Ocean and coastal India. Merchants and shipowners from Asian, African, and European shores flocked to the city to trade in Arabian coffee and aromatics, Indian textiles, Asian spices, and silver from the New World. Nancy Um tells how and why Mocha's urban shape and architecture took the forms they did. Mocha was a hub in a great trade network encompassing overseas cities, agricultural hinterlands, and inland market centers. All these connected places, together with the functional demands of commerce in the city, the social stratification of its residents, and the imam's desire for wealth, contributed to Mocha's architectural and urban form. Eventually, in the mid-1800s, the Ottomans regained control over Yemen and abandoned Mocha as their coastal base. Its trade and its population diminished and its magnificent buildings began to crumble, until few traces are left of them today. This book helps bring Mocha to life once again.

About The Author

Nancy Um is associate professor of art history at Binghamton University in New York.

Product Details

ISBN: 9780295989112
Format: Paperback
Publisher: University of Washington Press, (30 June 2009)
Number of Pages: 272
Weight: 408 grams
Language: English
Dimensions: 229 x 153 x 19 mm
Series:: See all books in this series
Categories:: Middle Eastern Asian History of architecture