Peasants, Famine and the State in Colonial Western India

Recent literature has suggested that famines are complex, long-drawn-out and political processes, rather than sudden, natural phenomena. This book is among the first to examine such a process in detail, by studying poor peasants in Ahmednagar district, Western India, between 1870 and 1884. It does so by investigating their factors of production - land, capital and labour - as well as markets in credit and the cheap foodgrains they produced and, above all, their relationship with the colonial state.

Autorentext

DAVID HALL-MATTHEWS is Lecturer in Development Studies at the School of Politics and International Studies, Leeds University, UK, having previously taught at Oxford, SOAS and LSE. Educated at SOAS and Oxford, where he was awarded a DPhil in Modern History in 2002, he is a former Fellow of the Centre for the Study of Administration of Relief, New Delhi.

Inhalt
Glossary of Terms Tables Acknowledgements Abbreviations Maps Introduction Landholding, Peasant Production and Rainfall Market Opportunities, Risks and Failures Rural Moneylending, Credit Legislation and Peasant Protest Land Revenue Rigidity, Revisions and Non-Remission Peasants and Relief Labour Conclusion Bibliography