This paper proposes that India's caste system and involuntary labor were joint responses by a nonworking landowning class to a low labor/land ratio in which the rules of the caste system supported the institution of involuntary labor. The hypothesis is tested in two ways: longitudinally, with...

For the first time, this book provides the global history of labor in Central Eurasia, Russia, Europe, and the Indian Ocean between the 16th and 20th centuries. It contests common views on free and unfree labor, comparing the latter to many Western countries where wage conditions resembled those...

The slave trades out of Africa represent one of the most significant forced migration experiences in history. In this paper, I illustrate their long-term consequences on contemporaneous socio-economic outcomes, drawing from my own previous work on the topic and from an extensive review of the...