The period 1707–1857 was punctuated by dramatic events which had porofound consequences for the history of the subcontinent. The ascendency of the British colonial enterprise was a more complex process than was conventionally understood, and scholarship from the 1980s has contributed to a more nuanced understanding of this period of flux. This authoritative textbook identifies and examines the processes of social and political change that took place over a century and a half.

Synthesising and analysing decades of research on this period, History of India 1707–1857, covers the following main themes:

• The disintegration of the Mughal Empire, the emergence of successor states, and the establishment of the East India Company’s dominance in the subcontinent. It also examines the debate around the so-called eighteenth century transition to capitalism, and the consequences of the colonial intervention.
• The processes that aided consolidation of the Raj, its methods of governance and the bliss of its economic set up.
• Social and intellectual constructs which developed during this period, laying the ground for colonial dominance as well as resistance to it.
• A comprehensive overview of developments in the fields of culture, art, literature, music and ideas during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
• Resistance to the colonial enterprise, culminating in the rebellion of 1857.

Each chapter is accompanied by maps and an up-to-date bibliography as well as an extensive glossary, making this an essential textbook for undergraduate students of Indian history.

Lakshmi Subramanian is Professor of History in the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata. She has previously taught at Jamia Millia Islamia (New Delhi), University of Calcutta and Visva-Bharati (Santiniketan)

List of Maps
Preface

Introduction
1. The Eighteenth Century Transition
2. The Establishment of the Company Bahadur 1757–1857
3. Consolidation and Governance: The Apparatus of the Company Raj
4. Economic Development and Social Change under Company Rule
5. Resistance and the Great Rebellion of 1857
Epilogue: Culture in the Century of Change

Glossary
Index