This book discusses the role historical events played in determining the pattern of growth of Indian manufacturing. Two important historical events significantly influenced the course of Indian manufacturing from the 15th century AD. The first was the arrival of European merchants via sea route...

Did overseas slave-holding by Britons accelerate the Industrial Revolution? We provide theory and evidence on the contribution of slave wealth to Britain's growth prior to 1835. We compare areas of Britain with high and low exposure to the colonial plantation economy, using granular data on...

Tirthankar Roy challenges the view that traditional industry was destroyed in the colonial period. Roy argues that while traditional industry did evolve during the industrial revolution, these transformations had a galvanizing effect on manufacturing generally and that the major industries in...

The study attempts to highlight the interrelation between three central points in the ongoing debate on the political economy of development: viability, surplus, and class-formation. A case study of the development of rural labour systems in Northern Nigeria is meant to provide both a better...