A Marxist scholar and historian, Irfan Habib has been a towering presence in the Indian intellectual scene for over four decades. His formidable intellectual reputation, established in the sixties with the publication of 'The Agrarian System of Mughal India', broadened as he became an authority in the entire area of Indian history from ancient to modern. Professor Habib's undiminished commitment to the cause of socialism is reflected in these highly original and bold analyses of Marxist historiography and theories of socialist construction.

This volume comprises essays from scholars around the world representing the wide variety of Habib's interests and contributions. Ranging from history to politics and economics, the essays cover both the medieval period and modern India, as well as theories for the future of this emerging superpower. This special edition also features an essay by Irfan Habib, originally published as 'The Economic History of Medieval India: A Survey', covering the Delhi Sultanate, the Vijayanagara economy and the economy of Mughal India.

The Chayanov known to us, until now, has been largely two-dimensional - the author of a fanciful peasant utopia, and the scientist who built a theory of peasant farm organisation around the concept of drudgery, the peasant's daily decision whether or not to trudge out to work in his field. A third Chayanov dimension emerges from the autobiographical material he was forced to write in the interrogation that followed his arrest, in 1930, and in the letters he wrote in the early 1920s when he lived and worked both in England and in the Germany to which thousands of Russia's greatest minds were drawn, willingly or unwillingly, after the Bolshevik revolution, the Germany whose capital became Russian Berlin.

A Marxist scholar and historian, Irfan Habib has been a towering presence on the Indian intellectual scene for over four decades. His formidable intellectual reputation, established in the sixties with the publication of "The Agrarian System of Mughal India," broadened as he became an authority in the entire area of Indian history from ancient to modern. Professor Habib s undiminished commitment to the cause of socialism is reflected in these highly original and bold analyses of Marxist historiography and theories of socialist construction.This volume comprises essays from scholars around the world representing the wide variety of Habib s interests and contributions. Ranging from history to politics and economics, the essays cover both the mediaeval period and modern India, as well as theories for the future of this emerging superpower.This special edition also features an essay by Irfan Habib originally published as "The Economic History of Medieval India: A Survey," covering the Delhi Sultanate, the Vijayanagara economy and the economy of Mughal India.