Money Credit In Indian Historyfrom Early Medieval Times

Papers presented at the 61st Session of the Indian History Congress held at Kolkata during 2-4 January 2001.

Essays In The Book Specify The Contexts In Which Apparently Similar Institutions Of Money And Credit Functioned In Very Different Ways. Has 11 Papers Presented At A Panel Organized By Indian History Congress, Kolkatta In 2000. Well Researched Papers By Eminent Thinkers In The Field.

This volume is a history of economics – as it was interpreted, discussed and established as a discipline – in the 20th century. It highlights the pluralism of the discipline and brings together leading voices in the field who reflect on their lifelong work. The chapters draw on a host of traditions of economic thought, including pre-classical, classical, Marxian, neoclassical, Sraffian, post-Keynesian, Cantabrigian and institutionalist traditions in economics. Further, the volume also looks at the history of economics in India and its evolution as a discipline since the country’s independence. This book will appeal to students, researchers and teachers of economics and intellectual history, as well as to the interested general reader.

A human economy puts people first in emergent world society. Money is a human universal and now takes the divisive form of capitalism. This book addresses how to think about money (from Aristotle to the daily news and the sexual economy of luxury goods); its contemporary evolution (banking the unbanked and remittances in the South, cross-border investment in China, the payments industry and the politics of bitcoin); and cases from 19th century India and Southern Africa to contemporary Haiti and Argentina. Money is one idea with diverse forms. As national monopoly currencies give way to regional and global federalism, money is a key to achieving economic democracy.

Money in Asia examines two chronic problems that faced early modern monetary economies in East, South, and Southeast Asia: The inability to provide sufficient amounts of small currencies to facilitate local economic transactions and to control currency depreciation. The studies in this volume analyze the social and economic consequences of small currency scarcity and devaluation on various Asian economies and show how various regimes tried to manage these ever-present challenges. They reveal that those regimes that dealt most successfully with these two issues were those with an integrated national approach to monetary policy. Contributors are: Peter Bernholz, Werner Burger, Cao Jin, Mark Elvin, Dennis O. Flynn, Roger Greatrex, Najaf Haider, Reinier H. Hesselink, Elisabeth Kaske, Man-houng Lin, Jane Kate Leonard, Christine Moll-Murata, Keiko Nagase-Reimer, Shan Kunqin, Shimada Ryūto, Ulrich Theobald, Hans Ulrich Vogel, and Willem Wolters

This book presents a complete and accessible description of the history of early India. It starts by discussing the origins and growth of civilizations, empires, and religions. It also deals with the geographical, ecological, and linguistic backgrounds, and looks at specific cultures of the Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Vedic periods, as well as at the Harappan civilization. In addition, the rise of Jainism and Buddhism, Magadha and the beginning of territorial states, and the period of Mauryas, Central Asian countries, Satvahanas, Guptas, and Harshavardhana are also analysed. Next, it stresses varna system, urbanization, commerce and trade, developments in science and philosophy, and cultural legacy. Finally, the process of transition from ancient to medieval India and the origin of the Aryan culture has also been examined.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Winner of the 2022 Joseph W. Elder Prize in the Indian Social Sciences Merchants of Virtue explores the question of what it meant to be Hindu in precolonial South Asia. Divya Cherian presents a fine-grained study of everyday life and local politics in the kingdom of Marwar in eighteenth-century western India to uncover how merchants enforced their caste ideals of vegetarianism and bodily austerity as universal markers of Hindu identity. Using legal strategies and alliances with elites, these merchants successfully remade the category of “Hindu,” setting it in contrast to “Untouchable” in a process that reconfigured Hinduism in caste terms. In a history pertinent to understanding India today, Cherian establishes the centrality of caste to the early-modern Hindu self and to its imagination of inadmissible others.