Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire

This volume reassesses the role of Indians in the politics and economics of early colonialism.

C. A. Bayly (Author)

9780521386500, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 26 July 1990

246 pages, 1 b/w illus. 5 maps
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.368 kg

'… The result is a rewarding narrative and nuanced analysis of nineteenth-century colonization … Price's accomplishment is not only to put together one piece of a bigger puzzle but also to make clear the value of his interactive perspective on imperial encounters wherever they occurred.' The Journal of Interdisciplinary History

The past twenty years have seen a proliferation of specialist scholarship on the period of India's transition to colonialism. This volume provides a synthesis of some of the most important themes to emerge from recent work and seeks in particular to reassess the role of Indians in the politics and economics of early colonialism. It discusses new views of the 'decline of the Moghuls' and the role of the Indian capitalists in the expansion of the English East Indian Company's trade and urban settlements. Professor Bayly considers the reasons for the inability of indigenous states to withstand the British, but also highlights the relative failure of the Company to transform India into a quiescent and profitable colony. Later chapters deal with changes in India's ecology, social organisation and ideologies in the nineteenth century, and analyse the nature of Indian resistance to colonialism, including the rebellion of 1857.

List of maps
General editor's preface
Preface
Introduction
1. India in the eighteenth century: the formation of states and social groups
2. Indian capital and the emergence of colonial society
3. The crisis of the Indian state, 1780–1820
4. The consolidation and failure of the East India Company's state, 1818–57
5. Peasant and Brahmin: consolidating 'traditional' society
6. Rebellion and reconstruction
Conclusion: the first age of colonialism in India
Glossary of Indian terms
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Asian history [HBJF]