¹ The extremely voluminous literature published over recent years on South Asian history c. 1720 –1860 makes it impossible, within the space available, either to provide a comprehensive survey or to review and critique with adequacy and justice the specific contriutions of individual historians. This paper is meant merely to promote the discussion of some general issues. Consequently, I have taken the liberty to keep references to a minimum and to use them as a general pointer towards large bodies of literature within which the general questions under discussion are raised.

² The four major journals publishing a large amount of South Asian history are: The Indian Economic and Social History Review (IESHR); Modern Asian Studies (MAS); The Journal of Asian Studies (JAS); The journal of peasant Studies (JPS). Over the last five years, South Asia-related research has also appeared in: The Economic History Review; The Journal of Economic History; Comparative Studies in Society and History; Past and present; The Historical Journal; Itinerario; Review; Daedalus; etc.

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³⁸ It need hardly be said that this point opens up a huge question concerning the relationship between exchange and capitalism. Braudel's conventions, by subsuming virtually all relations of exchange (or at least those mediated by money) under the label ‘capitalism’ may be judged teleological and certainly seem to miss the extent to which extended relations of exchange can have their roots and logic in attempts to safeguard subsistence under specific conditions. But space does not permit the pursuing of that line of inquiry here.

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⁴⁰ The decline in the relative share of the social product going to agricultural labour is well documented for the late nineteenth century onwards: see CEHI II (ch. III: 4); Baker, , Rural Economy. My own researches would suggest a decline, too, from the late 18th century.Google Scholar