India in the World Economy: From Antiquity to the Present

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, Jun 18, 2012 - Business & Economics - 288 pages
Cross-cultural exchange has characterized the economic life of India since antiquity. Its long coastline has afforded convenient access to Asia and Africa, and trading partnerships formed in the exchange of commodities ranging from textiles to military technology and opium to indigo. In a journey across 2,000 years, this enthralling book written by a leading South Asian historian, describes the ties of trade, migration, and investment between India and the rest of the world, showing how changing patterns of globalization reverberated on economic policy, politics, and political ideology within India. Along the way, the book asks three major questions. Is this a particularly Indian story? When did the big turning points happen? And is it possible to distinguish the modern from the pre-modern pattern of exchange? These questions invite a new approach to the study of Indian history by placing the region squarely at the center of the narrative. This is global history written on India's terms and, as such, the book invites South Asian, Indian, and global historians to rethink both their history and their methodologies.
 

Contents

Ports and Hinterlands to 1200
20
Receding Land Frontiers 12001700
50
The Indian Ocean Trade 15001800
73
Trade Migration and Investment 18001850
155
Trade Migration and Investment 18501920
163
Colonialism and Development 18601920
181
Depression and Decolonization 19201950
210
From Trade to Aid 19501980
224
Return to Market 19802010
238
A New India?
250
Index
275
224
281
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About the author (2012)

Tirthankar Roy is a Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His publications include The Economic History of India 1857-1947, Third Edition (2011), Towards a History of Consumption in South Asia, co-edited with Douglas Haynes, Abigail McGowan, and Haruka Yanagisawa (2010), Company of Kinsmen: Enterprise and Community in South Asian History 1700-1940 (2010), and Traditional Industry in the Economy of Colonial India (1999).