The Making of an Indian Ocean World-Economy, 1250-1650 Princes, Paddy fields, and Bazaars

by Palat, Ravi

• ISBN13: 9781137542199
• ISBN10: 1137542195
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-10-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This book draws upon the histories of societies based on wet-rice cultivation, such as India and China, to chart a pattern of social evolution and state formation different from Eurocentric notions. Professor Palat argues that production conditions in wet-rice agriculture did not favor large farms and that the absence of a political relationship between capitalists and rulers led to the absence of monopolies which generated the surplus that facilitated capitalism. The density of commercial linkages within the Indian Ocean world-system led to commercialism without capitalism and the large population that could be supported by rice cultivation promoted an 'industrious revolution' in which skill and manual dexterity had a decisive advantage over machines.

Author Biography

Ravi Palat is the Professor of Sociology at SUNY Binghamton and previously taught Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii and Sociology at the University of Auckland. Palat is the author of Capitalist Restructuring and the Pacific Rim (2004) and the editor of Pacific-Asia and the Future of the World-System (1994).

Table of Contents

1.Dynamics of Socio-Historical Change in Societies Based on Wet-Rice Cultivation

2.Global Roots of Local Politics: State Formation in an Eastern Mirror

3.Commercialism Without Capitalism: Labor-Intensive Manufacturing, and the Growth of Trade

4.A World-Economy Matures