These twelve essays explore the nature of south Asian agrarian society and examine the extent to which it changed during the period of British rule. The central focus of the book is directed to peasant agitation and violence and four of the studies look at the agrarian explosion that formed the background to the 1857 Mutiny. The essays give a coherent historical treatment of the Indian peasant world, and the paperback edition of this successful book will be of interest to the student of peasant studies and to the sociologist as well as to development economists and agronomists generally.

These twelve essays explore the nature of south Asian agrarian society and examine the extent to which it changed during the period of British rule. The central focus of the book is directed to peasant agitation and violence and four of the studies look at the agrarian explosion that formed the background to the 1857 Mutiny. The essays give a coherent historical treatment of the Indian peasant world, and the paperback edition of this successful book will be of interest to the student of peasant studies and to the sociologist as well as to development economists and agronomists generally.

A critical work of synthesis and interpretation of agrarian change in India over the long term.

Originally published in 1999, David Ludden's book offers a comprehensive historical framework for understanding the regional diversity of agrarian South Asia. Adopting a long-term view of history, it treats South Asia not as a single civilization territory, but rather as a patchwork of agrarian regions, each with their own social, cultural and political histories. The discussion begins during the first millennium, when farming communities displaced pastoral and tribal groups, and goes on to consider the development of territoriality from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Subsequent chapters consider the emergence of agrarian capitalism in village societies under the British, and demonstrate how economic development in contemporary South Asia continues to reflect the influence of agrarian localism. As a comparative synthesis of the literature on agrarian regimes in South Asia, the book promises to be a valuable resource for students of agrarian and regional history as well as of comparative world history.

In this book the late Eric Stokes, the foremost British historian of India of his generation, provides an in-depth analysis of the roots of the Indian Mutiny-rebellion of 1857, explaining the British victory and the mutineers' failure to consolidate their revolt.