"This study, based on the recently discovered contemporary source material, mainly documents containing statistical data, both in persian and english, examines those elements that formed the land revenue structure designed for a pargana under the Mughals and the changes effected in its working by the British in Sarkar Shahabad, Suba Bihar, during 1734-1790. In the context of land revenue arrangements and local affairs, the discussion is centred round the nature of rights and privileges the dominant Ujjainya landlords and other diverse categories of landholders enjoyed, and the state of cultivating classes. This phenomenon of change and continuity that marked the period of transition has been explained giving contemporary historical evidence."

To understand how colonialism redraws the equations of the colonized societies, a thorough analysis of the latter in the immediate preceeded period is required. There are few attempts on that line elsewhere in india, but Malabar remained excluded. The present study is an attempt to analyse theoretically and empirically the agrarian relations in Malabar during the late medieval period.

The first edition of the book aimed at presenting a mass of critically analysed material on the agrarian conditions of pre-colonial India - a subject which till then had received little attention. This revised and updated edition has much that is new in both descrition and perception. There is an expanded bibliography, a new descriptive index and new illustrations and maps.

An examination of the agrarian history of India by a British civil servant who had spent twenty-five years there.