Tea war: a history of capitalism in China and India / Andrew B. Liu.

By:

Liu, Andrew B [author.]

Material type: Text

TextSeries: Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia UniversityPublication details: London : Yale University Press, [2020]Description: xi, 344 pages : illustrations ; 25 cmISBN:

9780300243734(hardcover)

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

338.173720951 LIU

Summary: "Tea War studies the competition between the tea industries of China and colonial India as an exploration of the history of capitalism. Liu challenges previous histories premised on the technical "divergence" between the West and the Rest, arguing that seemingly traditional technologies and practices were central to modern capitalist development in the tea districts of China and India. He explains how the pressures of competition compelled merchants in China to adopt abstract, industrial conceptions of time, while in India colonial capitalists pushed for labor indenture laws to support factory-style tea plantations. He also explains how characterizations of China and colonial India as premodern backwaters were themselves the historical result of new notions of political economy adopted by Chinese and Indian nationalists, who discovered that these abstract ideas corresponded to the concrete social changes in their local surroundings. Together, these stories point toward more flexible and globally oriented conceptualizations of capitalism"-- Provided by publisher.

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Books	H.T. Parekh Library	SIAS Collection	338.173720951 LIU (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		K6049

Amazon
IN-109682
Rs.3983/-

Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-330) and index.

"Tea War studies the competition between the tea industries of China and colonial India as an exploration of the history of capitalism. Liu challenges previous histories premised on the technical "divergence" between the West and the Rest, arguing that seemingly traditional technologies and practices were central to modern capitalist development in the tea districts of China and India. He explains how the pressures of competition compelled merchants in China to adopt abstract, industrial conceptions of time, while in India colonial capitalists pushed for labor indenture laws to support factory-style tea plantations. He also explains how characterizations of China and colonial India as premodern backwaters were themselves the historical result of new notions of political economy adopted by Chinese and Indian nationalists, who discovered that these abstract ideas corresponded to the concrete social changes in their local surroundings. Together, these stories point toward more flexible and globally oriented conceptualizations of capitalism"-- Provided by publisher.

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