Considers Indian economic and social history and draws important conclusions about peasant politics in general.

As well as being an outstanding contribution to Indian economic and social history, this book draws important conclusions about peasant politics in general and about the effects of international economic fluctuations on primary producing countries. Dr Bose develops a general typology of systems of agrarian production in Bengal to show how these responded to different types of pressure from the world economy, and treats in detail the effects of the world Depression on Bengal. Separate chapters are devoted to the themes of agrarian conflict and religious strife in east Bengal, the agrarian dimension of mass nationalism in west Bengal and sharecroppers agitations in the frontier regions. The conclusion attempts a synthesis of the typology of agrarian social structure and the periodisation of peasant politics, placing this in the wider context of agrarian societies and protest in other parts of India and in South-east Asia.

Part I. Agrarian Economy and Society: Structure and Trends: 1. Introduction: A typology of agrarian social structure in early twentieth-century Bengal
2. Subsistence and the market I
3. Subsistence and the market II: The peasants' produce
4. The peasantry in debt: The working and rupture of systems of rural credit relations
5. Peasants into proletarians? The market in land and the question of change in the social organisation of production
Part II. Peasants and Politics: 6. Agrarian class conflict, nationalism and communalism in east Bengal
7. Agrarian relations and mass nationalism in west Bengal
8. Sharecroppers' agitations in the frontier regions.