Robert Travers is Associate Professor of History at Cornell University.

'A remarkable book that frames the history of the colonial state in the Persianate Mughal world. Travers has done a great service to eighteenth-century history in his subtle invocation of the Mughal political practice of petitioning to understand the wheels of law and justice in early colonial India. A brilliant non-Euro-centric gaze on the making of colonial India.' Seema Alavi, Delhi University

• Introduction; 1. Petitioning, taxation and law in eighteenth century Bengal: the context for empire; 2. Recasting Mughal law: company justice after 1772; 3. Zamindari succession disputes and Persianate Hindu law; 4. 'At the Durbar' in Calcutta: Banians, revenue farming, and the politics of landed debt; 5. A jagirdar's lament: an Indo-Persian historian's appeal to the British empire; 6. Conclusion: the making and remaking of a colonial judicial state (c.1780–1793); Select bibliography.

Robert Travers is Associate Professor of History at Cornell University.

'A remarkable book that frames the history of the colonial state in the Persianate Mughal world. Travers has done a great service to eighteenth-century history in his subtle invocation of the Mughal political practice of petitioning to understand the wheels of law and justice in early colonial India. A brilliant non-Euro-centric gaze on the making of colonial India.' Seema Alavi, Delhi University

• Introduction; 1. Petitioning, taxation and law in eighteenth century Bengal: the context for empire; 2. Recasting Mughal law: company justice after 1772; 3. Zamindari succession disputes and Persianate Hindu law; 4. 'At the Durbar' in Calcutta: Banians, revenue farming, and the politics of landed debt; 5. A jagirdar's lament: an Indo-Persian historian's appeal to the British empire; 6. Conclusion: the making and remaking of a colonial judicial state (c.1780–1793); Select bibliography.

Robert Travers is Associate Professor of History at Cornell University.

'A remarkable book that frames the history of the colonial state in the Persianate Mughal world. Travers has done a great service to eighteenth-century history in his subtle invocation of the Mughal political practice of petitioning to understand the wheels of law and justice in early colonial India. A brilliant non-Euro-centric gaze on the making of colonial India.' Seema Alavi, Delhi University

• Introduction; 1. Petitioning, taxation and law in eighteenth century Bengal: the context for empire; 2. Recasting Mughal law: company justice after 1772; 3. Zamindari succession disputes and Persianate Hindu law; 4. 'At the Durbar' in Calcutta: Banians, revenue farming, and the politics of landed debt; 5. A jagirdar's lament: an Indo-Persian historian's appeal to the British empire; 6. Conclusion: the making and remaking of a colonial judicial state (c.1780–1793); Select bibliography.