The death of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in 1707 until the annexation of Maratha territories by the British East India Company in 1818 was a period of transition for the economy of India. This book focuses on these transitions, and shows how a study of this period of Indian history contributes to a deeper understanding of the long-run patterns of economic change in India. Momentous changes occurred in business and politics in India during the eighteenth century - the expansion of trade with Europe and the collapse of the Mughal Empire, resulting in the formation of a number of independent states. This book analyses how these two forces were interrelated, and how they went on to change livelihoods and material wellbeing in the region. Using detailed studies of markets, institutions, rural and urban livelihoods, and the standard of living, it develops a new perspective on the history of eighteenth century India, one that places business at the centre, rather than the transition to colonial rule. This book is the first systematic account of the economic history of early modern India, and an essential reference for students and scholars of Economics and South Asian History.

This new edition of An Economic History of Early Modern India extends the timespan of the analysis to incorporate further research. This allows for a more detailed discussion of the rise of the British Empire in South Asia and gives a fuller context for the historiography. In the years between the death of the emperor Aurangzeb (1707) and the Great Rebellion (1857), the Mughal Empire and the states that rose from its ashes declined in wealth and power, and a British Empire emerged in South Asia. This book asks three key questions about the transition. Why did it happen? What did it mean? How did it shape economic change? The book shows that during these years, a merchant-friendly regime among warlord-ruled states emerged and state structure transformed to allow taxes and military capacity to be held by one central power, the British East India Company. The author demonstrates that the fall of warlord-ruled states and the empowerment of the merchant, in consequence, shaped the course of Indian and world economic history. Reconstructing South Asia’s transition, starting with the Mughal Empire’s collapse and ending with the great rebellion of 1857, this book is the first systematic account of the economic history of early modern India. It is an essential reference for students and scholars of Economics and South Asian History.

From the end of the eighteenth century, two distinct global processes began to transform livelihoods and living conditions in the South Asia region. These were the rise of British colonial rule and globalization, that is, the integration of the region in the emerging world markets for goods, capital, and labour services. Two hundred years later, India was the home to many of the world's poorest people as well as one of the fastest growing market economies in the world. Does a study of the past help to explain the paradox of growth amidst poverty? The Economic History of India: 1857–2010 claims that the roots of this paradox go back to India's colonial past, when internal factors like geography and external forces like globalization and imperial rule created prosperity in some areas and poverty in others. Looking at the recent scholarship in this area, this revised edition covers new subjects like environment and princely states. The author sets out the key questions that a study of long-run economic change in India should begin with and shows how historians have answered these questions and where the gaps remain.

In The Political Economy of Indigo in India, 1580-1930: A Global Perspective Ghulam A. Nadri explores the dynamics of the indigo industry and trade from a long-term perspective and examines the local and global forces that affected the potentialities of production in India and elsewhere and caused periods of boom and slump in the industry. Using the commodity chains conceptual framework he examines the stages in the trajectory of indigo from production to consumption. Nadri shows convincingly that the growth or decline in indigo production and trade in India was a part of the global processes of production, trade, and consumption and that indigo as a global commodity was embedded in the politics of empire and colonial expansion.

This interdisciplinary volume addresses the history, literature and material culture of peoples of Turkish origins in India over the eleventh to eighteenth centuries. Although many ruling dynasties and members of the elite in this period claimed Turkish descent, this aspect of their identity has seldom received much scholarly attention. The discussion is enriched by a focus on connections and comparisons with other parts of the broader Turko-Persian world, especially Anatolia. Although discussions of Turkish-Muslim rulers in India take account of their Central Asian origins and connections, links with Anatolia, stretching back to the medieval period, were also important in the formation of Turkish society and culture in India, and have been much less explored in the literature. The volume contains contributions by some of the leading scholars in the field.

The term "food security" does not immediately signal research done in humanities disciplines. It refers to a complex, contested issue, whose currency and significance are hardly debatable given present concerns about environmental change, resource management, and sustainability. The subject is thus largely studied within science and social science disciplines in current or very recent historical contexts. This book brings together perspectives on food security and related environmental concerns from experts in the disciplines of literary studies, history, science, and social sciences. It allows readers to compare past and contemporary attitudes towards the issues in India and Britain – the economic, social, and environmental histories of these two nations have been closely connected ever since British travellers began to visit India in the latter half of the sixteenth century. The chapters in this book discuss themes such as climate, harvest failure, trade, technological improvements, transport networks, charity measures, and popular protest, which affected food security in both countries from the seventeenth century onwards. The authors cover a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches, and their chapters allow readers to understand and compare different methodologies as well as different contexts of time and place relevant to the topic. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers of economic and social history, environmental history, literary studies, and South Asian studies.

What are the problems addressed by the growing field of global economic history? What debates and methodologies does it engage with? As Global Economic History shows, there are many answers to these questions. Riello and Roy, alongside 20 leading academics from the US, UK, Europe, Australia and Japan, explain why a global perspective matters to economic history. The impressive cast recruited by the editors brings together top scholars in their respective areas of expertise, including John McNeill, Patrick O'Brien, and Prasannan Parthasarathi. An ambitious scope of topics ranges from the 'Great Divergence' to the rise of global finance, to the New World and the global silver economy. Chapters are organized both thematically (Divergence in Global History and Emergence of a World Economy), and geographically (Regional Perspectives on Global Economic Change), ensuring the global perspective required on these challenging courses today. The result is a textbook which provides students with a quick and confident grasp of the field and its essential issues.

The most significant debate in global economic history over the past twenty years has dealt with the Great Divergence, the economic gap between different parts of the world. Thus far, this debate has focused on China, India and north-western Europe, particularly Great Britain. This book shifts the focus to ask how Japan became the only non-western county that managed, at least partially, to modernize its economy and start to industrialize in the 19th century. Using a range of empirical data, Peer Vries analyses the role of the state in Japan's economic growth from the Meiji Restoration to World War II, and asks whether Japan's economic success can be attributed to the rise of state power. Asserting that the state's involvement was fundamental in Japan's economic 'catching up', he demonstrates how this was built on legacies from the previous Tokugawa period. In this book, Vries deepens our understanding of the Great Divergence in global history by re-examining how Japan developed and modernized against the odds.

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This edited volume represents the latest research on intersections of war, state formation, and political economy, i.e., how conflicts have affected short- and long-run development of economies and the formation (or destruction) of states and their political economies. The contributors come from different fields of social and human sciencies, all featuring an interdisciplinary approach to the study of societal development. The types of big issues analyzed in this volume include the formation of European and non-European states in the early modern and modern period, the emergence of various forms of states and eventually modern democracies with extensive welfare states, the violent upheavals that influenced these processes, the persistence of dictatorships and non-democratic forms of government, and the arrival of total war and its consequences, especially in the context of twentieth-century world wars. One of the key themes is the dichotomy between democracies and dictatorships; namely, what were the origins of their emergence and evolution, why did some revolutions succeed and other fail, and why did democracies, on the whole, emerge victorious in the twentieth-century age of total wars? The contributions in this book are written with academic and non-academic audiences in mind, and both will find the broad themes discussed in this volume intuitive and useful.