• Books on eighteenth-century Bengal talk of how the economy declined when the British took over the revenue administration.
• This volume is different from other books written on this period because it breaks away from the well-trodden path of eighteenth-century historiography that looks at the period as one that saw a general decline.
•  It explores the major components of the distributive economic networks of markets, overland and riverine communication systems and consumption.
• It analyses their interaction with the state, both during the Nizamat and the early years of the rule of the English East India Company in Bengal.

Tilottama Mukherjee teaches in the Department of History, Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

List of Tables, Figures and Maps

Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

Publisher’s Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Markets: The Eighteenth-century Economic Terrain
2. Consumption in an Urban Milieu
3. Pilgrimage Complex: Economy and Religion
4. The Connecting Network: Transport Systems in a Mobile Society
5. The Nizamat State: Multiple Roles in the Changing Contours of Politics
6. Trade: The Early Company State and the Phase of Transition I
7. Communication, Labour, Ecology: The Early Company State in the Phase of Transition II

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index