Deepak Lal

This economic history of India is quite ambitious. Despite lacking historical training, the author sets out to explore Indian history from murky ”pre-Aryan” depths to the advent of hinduism, the muslim empires, British colonialism and independence. His notion of ”Hindu equilibrium” is developed in interesting detail in the first chapters with reference both to the caste system and to the economic and political conditions of early India. Unfortunately, starting from the chapters on British colonialism the author abandons all pretense of historiography in favor of massive tables filled with economic data. The book could just as well have been titled ”Indian Economic Statistics 1750-1980” from this point on. This must be the author’s true area of expertise, but after a broad and engaging historical analysis in the first five chapters the average reader will surely be very disappointed to find an extremely narrow perspective in the remainder of the book. This book deserves a bonus point for ambition, but deductions for lack of continuity and poor consideration for its prospective audience.… (més)