Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  • Cited by 60
  • Tirthankar Roy, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Bombay
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
July 2009
Print publication year:
1999
Online ISBN:
9780511497421

Book description

The majority of workers in South Asia are employed in industries that rely on manual labour and craft skills. Some of these industries have existed for centuries and survived great changes in consumption and technology over the last 150 years. In earlier studies, historians of the region focused on mechanized rather than craft industries, arguing that traditional manufacturing was destroyed or devitalized during the colonial period, and that 'modern' industry is substantially different. Exploring material from research into five traditional industries, Tirthankar Roy's book contests these notions, demonstrating that while traditional industry did evolve during the Industrial Revolution, these transformations had a positive rather than destructive effect on manufacturing generally. In fact, the book suggests, the major industries in post-independence India were shaped by such transformations. Tirthankar Roy's book offers penetrating insights into India's economic and social history.

Reviews

"This book is a must for any scholar concerned with transformations of traditional enterprise in the modern world economy. The extensive bibliography, solid revisionist argument, and detailed evidence also make it a new classic in the economic history of modern South Asia." Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"This impressively researched book by Tirthankar Roy perhaps drives the last nail into the coffin of the old nationalist, and sometimes Marxist, assumption that artisanal industries of precolonial India were dealt a death blow in the colonial period when British rule created a market for industrial goods that were either imported or manufactured locally...His approach is a welcome corrective to some of the received views on the history of Indian economy under British rule..." American Historical Review

"This new book by Tirthankar Roy of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Bombay is well worth reading. It is a careful and extremely well researched discussion of the evolution of five important craft-based industries during the colonial period." EH.NET (Feb 01)

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
×

Contents

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.