Prasannan Parthasarathi
Biographic Data
| ID | 1250499 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Prasannan Parthasarathi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Prasannan |
| FAMILY NAME | Parthasarathi |
| SIGNATURE | PARTHASARATHI P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Boston College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6378-4194 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 41 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
A Note on Sugar in Nineteenth-Century South India
The commodity frontiers framework describes well the movement of sugar cultivation across the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Caribbean. But it is less effective when explaining the evolution of sugar in nineteenth-century Tamil Nadu. In Tamil Nadu, the high costs of cultivation discouraged many peasants and landowners from planting sugar cane. As a consequence, despite British pressure to plant more cane, there was little increase in the crop befor…
The Contradictions of Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Textiles and Silver
Water and Agriculture in Nineteenth-century Tamilnad
With a focus by scholars on states and classes, the environment of India and its impact on agriculture has been neglected, except to provide a context-which was largely unchanging-in which states extracted and classes struggled. One example of environment as the backdrop is the distinction between 'wet' and 'dry' areas in Tamilnad and South India more widely. This distinction is based on the availability of water and on the local categorization o…
Money and Ritual in Eighteenth-Century South India
Between 1600 and 1800 South Asia absorbed about a fifth of the new silver injected into the global economy and a number of historians have documented the commercial boom and monetization of economic life that followed. This article, which draws on evidence from South India, examines the use of money in rituals that marked life-cycle events such as birth, marriage and death, which is an element of monetization that has thus far gone unrecognized. …
JAS Round Table on Amitav Ghosh,The Great Derangement
Amitav Ghosh, perhaps Asia's most prominent living author, moves among many genres and across vast territories. His fiction-The Circle of Reason(1986),The Shadow Lines(1988),The Glass Place(2000),The Hungry Tide(2004), andThe Ibistrilogy-takes us from Calcutta where he was born in 1956 to the Arabian Sea, Paris, London, and back again to the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and beyond. His nonfiction-In an Antique Land(1992),Dancing in Cambodia a…
Labor in South Asia
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Senior Editors’ Note
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Roland Wenzlhuemer. Connecting the Nineteenth-Century World
Roland Wenzlhuemer has written a deeply researched study of the telegraph and its contribution to globalization in the late nineteenth century. Much has been written about this technology, including the important works of Paul Kennedy, Daniel R. Headrick, and Anton A. Huurdeman, but Wenzlhuemer, through extraordinary archival efforts, has added a mass of quantitative material that elucidates the spread and distribution of the telegraph, both glob…
The Indian Ocean in the Long Eighteenth Century
This article considers the Indian Ocean in the eighteenth century, a period often seen as a moment of transition for the Ocean as an economic space. It argues that notwithstanding the increasing European presence, the eighteenth-century Indian Ocean world remained quintessentially Asian. The trade of cotton and the flow of American silver expanded an already developed system of trade and exchange. This article concludes by reflecting on the chron…
Historical Issues of Deindustrialization in Nineteenth-Century South India
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Indian cottons, especially the higher quality varieties, were less expensive than locally made cotton goods in virtually all markets around the globe. Weavers in South India possessed a number of advantages over their counterparts in Britain. Stephen Broadberry and Bishnupriya Gupta take the lowness of Indian silver wages as indicative of the low level of economic development in the subcontinent. The ba…
From India to the World
Since at least the nineteenth century, cotton has been the most important textile fibre in the world. In 1913, cotton accounted for 80 per cent of global fibre consumption: cotton consumption for textile uses was about 4 billion kilograms, while that of wool, the second most important fibre, was about 700 million kilograms. In 1990, even after the rise of synthetic fibres, which accounted for 38 per cent of global fibre use in textiles, cotton ac…
Global Labor History
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Indian Labor History
The 1980s and 1990s were decades of great creativity in Indian labor history. The study of labor moved from a long-standing institutional focus on trade unions to a study of workers themselves, as well as from the economism and determinism that had characterized many previous writings. A growing interest in labor led to the first conference devoted to Indian labor history at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam in 1995 and t…
Senior Editors' Note
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not
Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not provides a striking new answer to the classic question of why Europe industrialised from the late eighteenth century and Asia did not. Drawing significantly from the case of India, Prasannan Parthasarathi shows that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the advanced regions of Europe and Asia were more alike than different, both characterized by sophisticated and growing economies. Their subsequent dive…
Migrant Workers in the Middle East
Transnational labor migration is one of the most visible features of our globalizing world. The International Organization for Migration estimates that there are 214 million migrant workers crossing national borders in the world today. Migration both in and to the Middle East constitutes an important part of this movement of laborers and has deep roots. In the mid-fifteenth century, workers across a broad spectrum of occupations, including steved…
Historical Issues Of Deindustrialization In Nineteenth-Century South India
Founded in 1683 in Leiden, the Netherlands, Brill is a leading international academic publisher in the Humanities, Social Sciences, International Law, and Biology. With offices in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, the USA and Asia, Brill today publishes more than 360 journals and 2,000 new books and reference works each year as well as a large number of databases and primary source research collections.
Transition to a Colonial Economy
The State and Social History
Journal Article The State and Social History Get access Prasannan Parthasarathi Prasannan Parthasarathi History Department, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3806 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Social History, Volume 39, Issue 3, Spring 2006, Pages 771–778, https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh.2006.0009 Published: 01 March 2006
The State of Indian Social History
Journal Article The State of Indian Social History Get access Prasannan Parthasarathi Prasannan Parthasarathi Department of History, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3806 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Social History, Volume 37, Issue 1, Fall 2003, Pages 47–54, https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh.2003.0152 Published: 01 October 2003
The Great Divergence
Journal Article The Great Divergence Get access Prasannan Parthasarathi Prasannan Parthasarathi Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 176, Issue 1, August 2002, Pages 275–293, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/176.1.275 Published: 01 August 2002
The Transition to a Colonial Economy
According to widespread belief, poverty and low standards of living have been characteristic of India for centuries. Challenging this view, Prasannan Parthasarathi demonstrates that, until the late eighteenth century, labouring groups in South India, those at the bottom of the social order, were in a powerful position, receiving incomes well above subsistence. The decline in their economic fortunes, the author asserts, was a process initiated tow…
Rethinking Wages and Competitiveness in the Eighteenth Century
RETHINKING WAGES AND COMPETITIVENESS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: BRITAIN AND SOUTH INDIA Get access Prasannan Parthasarathi Prasannan Parthasarathi Harvard University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 158, Issue 1, February 1998, Pages 79–109, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/158.1.79 Published: 01 February 1998
Rethinking Wages and Competitiveness in the Eighteenth Century
RETHINKING WAGES AND COMPETITIVENESS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: BRITAIN AND SOUTH INDIA Get access Prasannan Parthasarathi Prasannan Parthasarathi Harvard University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 158, Issue 1, February 1998, Pages 79–109, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/158.1.79 Published: 01 February 1998
The Indian Ocean in the Long Eighteenth Century
This article considers the Indian Ocean in the eighteenth century, a period often seen as a moment of transition for the Ocean as an economic space. It argues that notwithstanding the increasing European presence, the eighteenth-century Indian Ocean world remained quintessentially Asian. The trade of cotton and the flow of American silver expanded an already developed system of trade and exchange. This article concludes by reflecting on the chron…
JAS Round Table on Amitav Ghosh,The Great Derangement
Amitav Ghosh, perhaps Asia's most prominent living author, moves among many genres and across vast territories. His fiction-The Circle of Reason(1986),The Shadow Lines(1988),The Glass Place(2000),The Hungry Tide(2004), andThe Ibistrilogy-takes us from Calcutta where he was born in 1956 to the Arabian Sea, Paris, London, and back again to the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and beyond. His nonfiction-In an Antique Land(1992),Dancing in Cambodia a…
Indian Labor History
The 1980s and 1990s were decades of great creativity in Indian labor history. The study of labor moved from a long-standing institutional focus on trade unions to a study of workers themselves, as well as from the economism and determinism that had characterized many previous writings. A growing interest in labor led to the first conference devoted to Indian labor history at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam in 1995 and t…
Water and Agriculture in Nineteenth-century Tamilnad
With a focus by scholars on states and classes, the environment of India and its impact on agriculture has been neglected, except to provide a context-which was largely unchanging-in which states extracted and classes struggled. One example of environment as the backdrop is the distinction between 'wet' and 'dry' areas in Tamilnad and South India more widely. This distinction is based on the availability of water and on the local categorization o…
Money and Ritual in Eighteenth-Century South India
Between 1600 and 1800 South Asia absorbed about a fifth of the new silver injected into the global economy and a number of historians have documented the commercial boom and monetization of economic life that followed. This article, which draws on evidence from South India, examines the use of money in rituals that marked life-cycle events such as birth, marriage and death, which is an element of monetization that has thus far gone unrecognized. …
Migrant Workers in the Middle East
Transnational labor migration is one of the most visible features of our globalizing world. The International Organization for Migration estimates that there are 214 million migrant workers crossing national borders in the world today. Migration both in and to the Middle East constitutes an important part of this movement of laborers and has deep roots. In the mid-fifteenth century, workers across a broad spectrum of occupations, including steved…
The State of Indian Social History
Journal Article The State of Indian Social History Get access Prasannan Parthasarathi Prasannan Parthasarathi Department of History, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3806 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Social History, Volume 37, Issue 1, Fall 2003, Pages 47–54, https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh.2003.0152 Published: 01 October 2003
The Great Divergence
Journal Article The Great Divergence Get access Prasannan Parthasarathi Prasannan Parthasarathi Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 176, Issue 1, August 2002, Pages 275–293, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/176.1.275 Published: 01 August 2002
Rethinking Wages and Competitiveness in the Eighteenth Century
RETHINKING WAGES AND COMPETITIVENESS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: BRITAIN AND SOUTH INDIA Get access Prasannan Parthasarathi Prasannan Parthasarathi Harvard University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 158, Issue 1, February 1998, Pages 79–109, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/158.1.79 Published: 01 February 1998
The Transition to a Colonial Economy
According to widespread belief, poverty and low standards of living have been characteristic of India for centuries. Challenging this view, Prasannan Parthasarathi demonstrates that, until the late eighteenth century, labouring groups in South India, those at the bottom of the social order, were in a powerful position, receiving incomes well above subsistence. The decline in their economic fortunes, the author asserts, was a process initiated tow…
The Great Divergence
Journal Article The Great Divergence Get access Prasannan Parthasarathi Prasannan Parthasarathi Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 176, Issue 1, August 2002, Pages 275–293, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/176.1.275 Published: 01 August 2002
The State of Indian Social History
Journal Article The State of Indian Social History Get access Prasannan Parthasarathi Prasannan Parthasarathi Department of History, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3806 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Social History, Volume 37, Issue 1, Fall 2003, Pages 47–54, https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh.2003.0152 Published: 01 October 2003
The State and Social History
Journal Article The State and Social History Get access Prasannan Parthasarathi Prasannan Parthasarathi History Department, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3806 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Social History, Volume 39, Issue 3, Spring 2006, Pages 771–778, https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh.2006.0009 Published: 01 March 2006
Transition to a Colonial Economy
Historical Issues Of Deindustrialization In Nineteenth-Century South India
Founded in 1683 in Leiden, the Netherlands, Brill is a leading international academic publisher in the Humanities, Social Sciences, International Law, and Biology. With offices in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, the USA and Asia, Brill today publishes more than 360 journals and 2,000 new books and reference works each year as well as a large number of databases and primary source research collections.
Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not
Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not provides a striking new answer to the classic question of why Europe industrialised from the late eighteenth century and Asia did not. Drawing significantly from the case of India, Prasannan Parthasarathi shows that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the advanced regions of Europe and Asia were more alike than different, both characterized by sophisticated and growing economies. Their subsequent dive…
Migrant Workers in the Middle East
Transnational labor migration is one of the most visible features of our globalizing world. The International Organization for Migration estimates that there are 214 million migrant workers crossing national borders in the world today. Migration both in and to the Middle East constitutes an important part of this movement of laborers and has deep roots. In the mid-fifteenth century, workers across a broad spectrum of occupations, including steved…
From India to the World
Since at least the nineteenth century, cotton has been the most important textile fibre in the world. In 1913, cotton accounted for 80 per cent of global fibre consumption: cotton consumption for textile uses was about 4 billion kilograms, while that of wool, the second most important fibre, was about 700 million kilograms. In 1990, even after the rise of synthetic fibres, which accounted for 38 per cent of global fibre use in textiles, cotton ac…
Global Labor History
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Indian Labor History
The 1980s and 1990s were decades of great creativity in Indian labor history. The study of labor moved from a long-standing institutional focus on trade unions to a study of workers themselves, as well as from the economism and determinism that had characterized many previous writings. A growing interest in labor led to the first conference devoted to Indian labor history at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam in 1995 and t…
Senior Editors' Note
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Historical Issues of Deindustrialization in Nineteenth-Century South India
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Indian cottons, especially the higher quality varieties, were less expensive than locally made cotton goods in virtually all markets around the globe. Weavers in South India possessed a number of advantages over their counterparts in Britain. Stephen Broadberry and Bishnupriya Gupta take the lowness of Indian silver wages as indicative of the low level of economic development in the subcontinent. The ba…
Roland Wenzlhuemer. Connecting the Nineteenth-Century World
Roland Wenzlhuemer has written a deeply researched study of the telegraph and its contribution to globalization in the late nineteenth century. Much has been written about this technology, including the important works of Paul Kennedy, Daniel R. Headrick, and Anton A. Huurdeman, but Wenzlhuemer, through extraordinary archival efforts, has added a mass of quantitative material that elucidates the spread and distribution of the telegraph, both glob…
The Indian Ocean in the Long Eighteenth Century
This article considers the Indian Ocean in the eighteenth century, a period often seen as a moment of transition for the Ocean as an economic space. It argues that notwithstanding the increasing European presence, the eighteenth-century Indian Ocean world remained quintessentially Asian. The trade of cotton and the flow of American silver expanded an already developed system of trade and exchange. This article concludes by reflecting on the chron…
Labor in South Asia
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Senior Editors’ Note
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Money and Ritual in Eighteenth-Century South India
Between 1600 and 1800 South Asia absorbed about a fifth of the new silver injected into the global economy and a number of historians have documented the commercial boom and monetization of economic life that followed. This article, which draws on evidence from South India, examines the use of money in rituals that marked life-cycle events such as birth, marriage and death, which is an element of monetization that has thus far gone unrecognized. …
JAS Round Table on Amitav Ghosh,The Great Derangement
Amitav Ghosh, perhaps Asia's most prominent living author, moves among many genres and across vast territories. His fiction-The Circle of Reason(1986),The Shadow Lines(1988),The Glass Place(2000),The Hungry Tide(2004), andThe Ibistrilogy-takes us from Calcutta where he was born in 1956 to the Arabian Sea, Paris, London, and back again to the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and beyond. His nonfiction-In an Antique Land(1992),Dancing in Cambodia a…
Water and Agriculture in Nineteenth-century Tamilnad
With a focus by scholars on states and classes, the environment of India and its impact on agriculture has been neglected, except to provide a context-which was largely unchanging-in which states extracted and classes struggled. One example of environment as the backdrop is the distinction between 'wet' and 'dry' areas in Tamilnad and South India more widely. This distinction is based on the availability of water and on the local categorization o…
The Contradictions of Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Textiles and Silver
A Note on Sugar in Nineteenth-Century South India
The commodity frontiers framework describes well the movement of sugar cultivation across the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Caribbean. But it is less effective when explaining the evolution of sugar in nineteenth-century Tamil Nadu. In Tamil Nadu, the high costs of cultivation discouraged many peasants and landowners from planting sugar cane. As a consequence, despite British pressure to plant more cane, there was little increase in the crop befor…
History (18 works) · Political science (14 works) · Geography (12 works) · Economics (11 works) · Ancient history (9 works) · Archaeology (9 works) · Economy (8 works) · History (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Economic history (7 works)