This book interrogates and historicises eighteenth-century British women writers’ responses to India through the novel and travel writing to bring out the polyvalent space arising out of their complex negotiation with the colonial discourse. Though British women enjoyed their privileged racial status as the utilisers of colonial riches, they articulated their voice of dissent when they faced the politics of subordination in their own society and identified them with the marginalised status of the colonised Indians. This brings out the complicity and critique of the colonial discourse of British women writers and foregrounds their ambivalent responses to the colonial project. This book provides detailed textual analysis of the works of Phebe Gibbes, Elizabeth Hamilton, Lady Morgan, Jemima Kindersley and Eliza Fay through critical insights from the idea of the Enlightenment, postcolonial theory and feminist thought. It also foregrounds new perspectives to colonial discourse vis-à-vis the representation of India by locating the dialogic strain within the British narratives about India.

This book interrogates and historicises eighteenth-century British women writers' responses to India through the novel and travel writing to bring out the polyvalent space arising out of their complex negotiation with the colonial discourse. Though British women enjoyed their privileged racial status as the utilisers of colonial riches, they articulated their voice of dissent when they faced the politics of subordination in their own society and identified them with the marginalised status of the colonised Indians. This brings out the complicity and critique of the colonial discourse of British women writers and foregrounds their ambivalent responses to the colonial project. This book provides detailed textual analysis of the works of Phebe Gibbes, Elizabeth Hamilton, Lady Morgan, Jemima Kindersley and Eliza Fay through critical insights from the idea of the Enlightenment, postcolonial theory and feminist thought. It also foregrounds new perspectives to colonial discourse vis-a-vis the representation of India by locating the dialogic strain within the British narratives about India.

This book provides the first comprehensive introduction to multi-agent, multi-choice repetitive games, such as the Kolkata Restaurant Problem and the Minority Game. It explains how the tangible formulations of these games, using stochastic strategies developed by statistical physicists employing both classical and quantum physics, have led to very efficient solutions to the problems posed. Further, it includes sufficient introductory notes on information-processing strategies employing both classical statistical physics and quantum mechanics. Games of this nature, in which agents are presented with choices, from among which their goal is to make the minority choice, offer effective means of modeling herd behavior and market dynamics and are highly relevant to assessing systemic risk. Accordingly, this book will be of interest to economists, physicists, and computer scientists alike.

Successful or not, we all (have to?) go to various markets and participate in their activities. Yet, solittle is understoodabout their functionings. E orts to model various markets are now substantial. Econophysicists have also come up recently with several innovative models and their analyses. This book is a proceedings of the International Workshop on \Eco- physics of StockMarkets and Minority Games,"heldinKolkataduringFeb- ary 14-17, 2006, under the auspices of the Centre for Applied Mathem- ics and Computational Science, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata. This is the second event in the Econophys-Kolkata series of meetings; the Econophys-Kolkata I was held in March 2005 (Proceedings: Econophysics of Wealth Distributions, published in the same New Economic Windows series by Springer, Milan in 2005). We understand from the enthusiastic response of the participants that the one-day trip to the Sunderbans (Tiger Reserve; a world heritage point) along with the lecture-sessions on the vessel had been hugely enjoyable and successful. The concluding session had again very lively discussions on the workshop topics as well as on econophysics in general, i- tiated by J. Barkley Rosser, Matteo Marsili, Rosario Mantegna and Robin Stinchcombe (Chair). We plan to hold the next meeting in this series, on \Econophysics and Sociophysics: Debates on Complexity Issues in Economics and Sociology" early next year. We are very happy that several leading economists and physicists engaged intheserecentdevelopmentsintheeconophysicsofmarkets, theiranalysisand modellingcouldcomeandparticipate.

We all know the hard fact: neither wealth nor income is ever uniform for us all. Justified or not, they are unevenly distributed; few are rich and many are poor! Investigations for more than hundred years and the recent availability of the income distribution data in the internet (made available by the finance ministries of various countries; from the tax return data of the income tax departments) have revealed some remarkable features. Irrespective of many differences in culture, history, language and, to some extent, the economic policies followed in different countries, the income distribution is seen to fol low a particular universal pattern. So does the wealth distribution. Barring an initial rise in population with income (or wealth; for the destitutes), the population decreases either exponentially or in a log-normal way for the ma jority of 'middle income' group, and it eventually decreases following a power law (Pareto law, following Vilfredo Pareto's observation in 1896) for the rich est 5-10 % of the population! This seems to be an universal feature - valid for most of the countries and civilizations; may be in ancient Egypt as well! Econophysicists tried to view this as a natural law for a statistical ma- body-dynamical market system, analogous to gases, liquids or solids: classical or quantum.

Econophysics research studies, which apply methods developed by physicists to solve problems in economics, enable you to deepen your understanding of what financial systems are and how they operate. Articles in this book identify and explain the statistical behavior of the underlying networks in trading, banking, and stock markets as well as other financial systems. Authors also debate the latest issues arising from these econophysics studies.

Econophysics research studies, which apply methods developed by physicists to solve problems in economics, enable you to deepen your understanding of what financial systems are and how they operate. Articles in this book identify and explain the statistical behavior of the underlying networks in trading, banking, and stock markets as well as other financial systems. Authors also debate the latest issues arising from these econophysics studies.

Successful or not, we all (have to?) go to various markets and participate in their activities. Yet, solittle is understoodabout their functionings. E orts to model various markets are now substantial. Econophysicists have also come up recently with several innovative models and their analyses. This book is a proceedings of the International Workshop on \Eco- physics of StockMarkets and Minority Games",heldinKolkataduringFeb- ary 14-17, 2006, under the auspices of the Centre for Applied Mathem- ics and Computational Science, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata. This is the second event in the Econophys-Kolkata series of meetings; the Econophys-Kolkata I was held in March 2005 (Proceedings: Econophysics of Wealth Distributions, published in the same New Economic Windows series by Springer, Milan in 2005). We understand from the enthusiastic response of the participants that the one-day trip to the Sunderbans (Tiger Reserve; a world heritage point) along with the lecture-sessions on the vessel had been hugely enjoyable and successful. The concluding session had again very lively discussions on the workshop topics as well as on econophysics in general, i- tiated by J. Barkley Rosser, Matteo Marsili, Rosario Mantegna and Robin Stinchcombe (Chair). We plan to hold the next meeting in this series, on \Econophysics and Sociophysics: Debates on Complexity Issues in Economics and Sociology" early next year. We are very happy that several leading economists and physicists engaged intheserecentdevelopmentsintheeconophysicsofmarkets,theiranalysisand modellingcouldcomeandparticipate.

We all know the hard fact: neither wealth nor income is ever uniform for us all. Justified or not, they are unevenly distributed; few are rich and many are poor! Investigations for more than hundred years and the recent availability of the income distribution data in the internet (made available by the finance ministries of various countries; from the tax return data of the income tax departments) have revealed some remarkable features. Irrespective of many differences in culture, history, language and, to some extent, the economic policies followed in different countries, the income distribution is seen to fol low a particular universal pattern. So does the wealth distribution. Barring an initial rise in population with income (or wealth; for the destitutes), the population decreases either exponentially or in a log-normal way for the ma jority of 'middle income' group, and it eventually decreases following a power law (Pareto law, following Vilfredo Pareto's observation in 1896) for the rich est 5-10 % of the population! This seems to be an universal feature - valid for most of the countries and civilizations; may be in ancient Egypt as well! Econophysicists tried to view this as a natural law for a statistical ma- body-dynamical market system, analogous to gases, liquids or solids: classical or quantum.

The distribution of wealth and income is never uniform, and philosophers and economists have tried for years to understand the reasons and formulate remedies for such inequalities. This book introduces the elegant and intriguing kinetic exchange models that physicists have developed to tackle these issues. This is the first monograph in econophysics focussed on the analyses and modelling of these distributions, and is ideal for physicists and economists. It is written in simple, lucid language, with plenty of illustrations and in-depth analyses, making it suitable for researchers new to this field as well as specialized readers. It explores the origin of economic inequality and examines the scientific steps that can be taken to reduce this inequality in the future.