Thomas Munro was among the most important of British thinker-administrators who shaped imperial rule in India. He was the creator, in the early nineteenth century, of the revenue and administrative system of two vast territories that were controlled by colonial authority from Madras andBombay, and his life stands even today as a symbol of the more thoughtful and humane aspects of foreign rule over India. This scholarly biography draws for the first time upon the full range, hitherto unavailable, of the Munro papers to present a revealing insight into the intellectual basis ofearly colonialism, and the influence of Thomas Munro in the shaping of British policy.

Poem on Indian civilization, with reference to the coalescence of Aryan and Dravidian traditions.

India, Modernity and the Great Divergence is an original and pioneering book about India’s transition towards modernity and the rise of the West. The work examines global entanglements alongside the internal dynamics of 17th to 19th century Mysore and Gujarat in comparison to other regions of Afro-Eurasia. It is an interdisciplinary survey that enriches our historical understanding of South Asia, ranging across the fascinating and intertwined worlds of modernizing rulers, wealthy merchants, curious scholars, utopian poets, industrious peasants and skilled artisans. Bringing together socio-economic and political structures, warfare, techno-scientific innovations, knowledge production and transfer of ideas, this book forces us to rethink the reasons behind the emergence of the modern world.