The making of an Indian Ocean world-economy, 1250-1650 : princes, paddy fields, bazaars / Ravi Palat.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Towards a framework to debate world history: bringing South India and the Indian Ocean back in -- A stylized model of socio-historical change in societies based on wet-rice cultivation -- Regional variations -- European intrusion -- Theoretical implications -- Plan of the work -- Dynamics of socio-historical change in societies based on wet-rice cultivation -- Natural characteristics of wet-rice cultivation -- Changing patterns of agrarian relations in the Tamil country -- Long-term social change in wet-rice growing societies -- Global roots of local politics: state formation in an Eastern mirror -- Horsemen of the Apocalypse -- New technologies of rule: a Tamil case study -- State formation in an Eastern mirror -- Commercialism without capitalism: labor-intensive manufacturing, and the growth of trade -- Commodity production and the expanding circuits of exchange -- Industrious revolution -- Theoretical reprise -- A world-economy matures -- Trade revival in the fifteenth century -- The Lusitanian interlude -- A trade revolution? -- A world transformed -- Rethinking historical change.

"To counter Eurocentric notions of long-term historical change, this book draws upon the histories of societies based on wet-rice cultivation to chart an alternate pattern of social evolution and state formation; traces inter-state linkages and the growth of commercialization without capitalism; 'industrious revolution' in India, China, Japan, Southeast Asia"--