Amiya Kumar Bagchi – författare

While most of the advanced capitalist countries are reeling under a severe financial crisis, the rapid growth of India and China, the two largest and fastest growing economies in the world, are contributing to the realignment of the world economy. At the same time, the transition in these countries is characterized by deep rural poverty and underdevelopment, and plagued by unprecedented forms of social and economic inequality, reliance on volatile export markets, brutal land grabs, and forms of crony capitalism.This volume brings together twelve wide-ranging essays that collectively engage in discussing key areas of transformation and development, including agriculture, industry, global finance and outward direct foreign investments, science and technology, and R&D policies of these nations. Using an interdisciplinary and multi-level analysis, the volume provides comprehensive and critical insights into the dynamics of the development process in the two countries while exploring the realignment of east-west and north-south relations as well as regional balance.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book deals with the history of private investment in India and its determinants during the period 1900-1939. It develops a simple theoretical framework in its first part and tries to isolate the influence on private investment in India of factor supplies, as against demand conditions. In the second part, all the major manufacturing industries of the period are studied in detail. Most of the analytical apparatus used is developed from orthodox economic theory, but a heavy emphasis is placed on Keynesian ideas. Finally, the author presents a case study in the economic relations between an imperial power (Britain) and a dependent colony (India). He also examines the social relations between the ruling race and the Indians, and provides one of the few detailed accounts of the mechanics of imperialism.

The division of the world into rich and poor nations, and the division within poor nations between a minority of rich people and a majority of poor people living at a minimum subsistence level, has been obvious to careful observers for a long time. This book gives an overview of the problems of underdevelopment confronting third-world countries, making use of both Marxist and neo-Keynesian methods of analysis. It makes clear the historical origins of these contemporary problems, particularly with reference to the major countries of Asia and Latin America, and discusses the ways in which inequalities, both within and between countries, are propaged and perpetuated. Other problems analysed are the typical patterns of fluctuating growth faced by third-world countries; the social structures in both rural and urban areas and their influence on the behaviour of governments and private investors in these countries; and environmental control and population planning issues faced by these countries. Finally, an introduction is provided to the planning methods adopted by most third-world countries and the hurdles such planning has encountered. The illustrations are drawn widely from among third-world countries.

In this innovative and ambitious global history, distinguished economic historian Amiya Kumar Bagchi critically analyzes the processes leading to the rise of the West since the sixteenth century to its current position as the most prosperous and powerful group of nations in the world. Integrating the history of armed conflict with the history of competition for trade, investment, and markets, Bagchi explores the human consequences for people both within and outside the region. He characterizes the emergence and operation of capitalism as a system driven by wars over resources and markets rather than one that genuinely operates on the principle of free markets. In tracing this history, he also charts what happened to the people who came under its sway during the last five centuries. Bagchi thus broadens our understanding of the nature and history of capitalism and challenges the fetishism of commodities that limits the perspective of most economic historians. The book also challenges the Eurocentrism that still underlies the conceptual framework of many mainstream historians, joining earlier narratives that chronicle the history of human beings as living persons rather than as puppets serving the abstract cause of "economic growth." His unflinching examination of the human costs of development—not only in the colonial periphery but in the core nations—includes not only economic processes and issues of inequality within and among nations but also the intertwining of economics and war-making on a world scale. The book also contributes to our knowledge of how and in what sequence human health has been shaped by public health care, sanitation, modern medicine, income levels and nutrition. Written with extraordinary range and depth, Perilous Passage will change the ways in which we think about many of the largest issues in world history and development.

This book provides a historical background to the formation of the Indian capitalist class from before British colonial rule in India. It analyses the nature of that class, the ways in which it changed under colonial rule, and the state of independent India; it also sets some of the peculiarities of capitalist organization in India and the ideology of big capital in their historical context.