Abstract
A new economic world took shape in India in the 1800s. It was new in that a pattern of trade emerged that did not exist before. In the 1700s, Indians exported textiles. In the 1800s, Indians exported agricultural commodities. The emergence of the new trading order owed to two things. A powerful state ruled over both the agricultural hinterland and the seaboard. And the state was interested in overseas trade. This state was the British Empire in South Asia. The transformation led to gains for some and losses for others. The chapter describes the emergence of the new model of capitalism, its consequences, and shows why politics was so important to its emergence.
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Further Reading
Burton Stein, ed., ‘Introduction’, The Making of Agrarian Policy in British India 1770–1900, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992, 1–32.
Kenneth McPherson, The Indian Ocean: A History of People and the Sea, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Om Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise in Precolonial India: The New Cambridge History of India, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
P.J. Marshall (ed.), ‘Introduction’, Eighteenth Century in Indian History: Evolution or Revolution? Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003, 1–30.
Tirthankar Roy, An Economic History of Early Modern India, London and Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.
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Roy, T. (2019). The Making of British India. In: How British Rule Changed India’s Economy. Palgrave Studies in Economic History. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17708-9_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17708-9_2
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