Abstract
How did British colonial rule shape India’s economy? The answers to this question now available from academic and popular history are not always satisfactory, because these works do not clearly say what facts we should be explaining. The most important element of British economic policy was openness, or the desire to keep the borders open to movements of goods, capital, skills, and technologies. Openness delivered mixed results. It helped businesses grow and end famines, but did not help much the resource-poor countryside. Openness benefited men more than women, capital more than labour, and the upper castes more than others. The legacy of the regime, therefore, was a mix of successes and extraordinary failures. The book shows how this paradox can be explained.
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Further Reading
B.R. Tomlinson, The Economy of Modern India, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Dietmar Rothermund, Economic History of India, London: Routledge, 2003.
Tirthankar Roy, The Economic History of India 1858–1947, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011.
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Roy, T. (2019). Introduction. In: How British Rule Changed India’s Economy. Palgrave Studies in Economic History. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17708-9_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17708-9_1
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Cham
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