India, Modernity and the Great Divergence is an original and pioneering book about India's transition towards modernity and the rise of the West. The work examines global entanglements alongside the internal dynamics of 17th to 19th century Mysore and Gujarat in comparison to other regions of Afro-Eurasia. It is an interdisciplinary survey that enriches our historical understanding of South Asia, ranging across the fascinating and intertwined worlds of modernizing rulers, wealthy merchants, curious scholars, utopian poets, industrious peasants and skilled artisans. Bringing together socio-economic and political structures, warfare, techno-scientific innovations, knowledge production and transfer of ideas, this book forces us to rethink the reasons behind the emergence of the modern world.

This book tries to decenter work on the history of capitalism by looking at the longue duree from the tenth century; at regions as diverse as Song China, South and South East Asia, Latin America and the Ottoman and Safavid Empires; and exploring the plurality of developments over this extended time and space. The authors argue against conventional accounts that locate the origins of capitalism solely within Europe and within the conjuncture of the industrial revolution. The essays emphasize historical conjunctures, flows of commodities, circulation of knowledge and personnel, the role of mercantile capital and small producers and stress throughout the necessity to think beyond present day national boundaries. The volume contends with cliches of Western exceptionalism to make a set of historical arguments about non-Western and interconnected economic developments across the globe, prior to the era of colonialism. It argues fundamentally that the multiple histories of capitalism can be better understood from a truly global perspective.