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.
Author(s): Tirthankar Roy
Edition: 2
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 210
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of tables
List of maps
Preface
Chapter 1: Introduction
The emergence of British rule in India
Saviours or villains?
The shifting alliance theory
The superior force theory
The fiscal capacity theory
The new economy
Who gained?
Chapter outline
Notes
Chapter 2: State formation
The precolonial state
Awadh and Rohilkhand
Bengal
The Maratha dominion
Hyderabad
Mysore and Tanjore
Malabar and Travancore
Gujarat and Rajputana
Punjab
Assam
Sind
The last round of annexations
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 3: State consolidation
The decline of the East India Company as a business
Building the fiscal foundations of the state
Military build-up
Reform of property right
Internal trade: Decline and revival
Public goods in British India
Princely states
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 4: The agrarian order
Geography
The institutional setup before colonial rule: Landlords
The institutional setup before colonialism: Peasants
How institutions changed
Eastern India
Western India
Northern and central India
Southern India
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 5: Conditions of business
The meaning of early-modern trade: incorporation or transformation? 1
The prehistory of the Indian Ocean trade
Indian Ocean trade: the eighteenth century
Private traders
Indian Maritime Merchants
Agents and associates
Artisans
Internal Overland Trade
Banking, finance, and modern forms of agency
Mobile transporters of southern India
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 6: Towns
What was a town around 1700?
The seventeenth century
What do the numbers show?
De-urbanization: Delhi, Agra, Lahore, Dhaka
The emergence of regional capitals: Lucknow, Benares, Patna, Hyderabad, Pune
The ports: Surat, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Karachi
The morphology of the port town: one world, two worlds, many worlds?
Market towns
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 7: Levels of living
The wage studies
Land yield
Population and income
Agriculture: expansion of trade and cultivation
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 8: The rebellion of 1857–58
An uneven historiography
Source analysis
Disaffection
War supplies
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 9: Conclusion
References
Index
