Bücher von K. N. Chaudhuri

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 papers reprinted here illustrate first the quantitative aspects of Indian trade in this period, and secondly its institutional and policy features.

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.

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' research and reflection on pre-modern trade and civilisations, was a landmark in the analysis and interpretation of Asia's historical position and development.