Before the age of Industrial Revolution, the great Asian civilisations - whether located in the Middle East, India, South-East Asia, or the Far East - constituted areas not only of high culture but al
This 1971 volume brings together a number of tracts on problems of India's economic development, particularly in relation to the changes taking place in her international trade. The first half of the nineteenth century was a period of important economic transition for India. A vital aspect of it was the rapid expansion in the volume and value of Indian foreign trade, accompanied by fundamental structural changes, which transformed the old eighteenth-century mercantile pattern of India's trade with the West into a system based on an exchange of primary commodities for finished manufactured goods. The papers reprinted here illustrate first the quantitative aspects of Indian trade in this period, and secondly its institutional and policy features. The editor provides a full introduction and tables of statistics.
Before the age of Industrial Revolution, the great Asian civilisations - whether located in the Middle East, India, South-East Asia, or the Far East - constituted areas not only of high culture but also of advanced economic development. They were the First World of human societies. This 1985 book examines one of the driving forces of that historical period: the long chain of oceanic trade which stretched from the South China Sea to the eastern Mediterranean. It also looks at the natural complement of the seaborne commerce, its counterpart in the caravan trade. Its main achievement is to show how socially determined demand derived from cultural habits and interpretations operated through the medium of market forces and relative prices. It points out the unique and limiting features of Asian commercial capitalism, and shows how the contribution of Asian merchants was valued universally, in reality if not legally and formally. Professor Chaudhuri's book, based on more than twenty years' r
The main contribution of the work is to offer a comprehensive history of the English East India Company during the century 1660–1760. It also examines the commercial economy of the Asian countries in which the Company traded and its political relations with Asian princes. Finally, it is a study of business and economic decision-making under pre-modern conditions. The book is based on an extensive analysis of the quantitative and qualitative material available in the Company's archives. The data-processing of the quantitative evidence and its subsequent statistical analysis was carried out on a computer, and the book contains comprehensive tables on the volume and value of the Company's trade, prices of commercial goods, and on monetary and financial history. The extensive scope of the book and its consideration not only of the Company but of the economies in which it operated make it essential reading for all concerned with the economic history of the period, both of Europe and Asia. T
