Book Reviews : PRASANNAN PARTHASARATHI, The Transition to a Colonial Economy: Weavers, Mer chants and Kings in South India, 1720-1800 (Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society 7), Cambridge, CUP, 2001, pp. xii + 165

Abstract

spatial mobility and strong bargaining position of artisans in south India and the ’labour policies’ of the pre-colonial and colonial regimes. Since most eighteenthcentury studies have so far focused, as Parthasarathi points out correctly, on intermediary and mercantile groups of Indian society, the exploration of each of these themes is crucial for a more comprehensive analysis of the ’transition to a colonial