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Monsoon Economies

History for a Sustainable Future

Monsoon Economies

India's History in a Changing Climate

by Tirthankar Roy

Paperback

$30.00

Paperback

ISBN: 9780262543583

Pub date: April 12, 2022

Publisher: The MIT Press

230 pp., 5 x 8 in, 8 b&w illus.

Rights: not for sale on the Indian subcontinent

MIT Press Bookstore Penguin Random House Amazon Barnes and Noble Bookshop.org Indiebound Indigo Books a Million

eBook

$29.99

eBook

ISBN: 9780262369275

Pub date: April 12, 2022

Publisher: The MIT Press

230 pp., 5 x 8 in, 8 b&w illus.

Rights: not for sale on the Indian subcontinent

Penguin Random House

230 pp., 5 x 8 in, 8 b&w illus.

Paperback
9780262543583
Published: April 2022
Publisher: The MIT Press
Rights: not for sale on the Indian subcontinent

$30.00

eBook
9780262369275
Published: April 2022
Publisher: The MIT Press
Rights: not for sale on the Indian subcontinent

$29.99

MIT Press Bookstore
Penguin Random House
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Bookshop.org
Indiebound
Indigo
Books a Million

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Amazon
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Description
Author(s)
Praise

How interventions to mitigate climate-caused poverty and inequality in India came at a cost to environmental sustainability.

In the monsoon regions of South Asia, the rainy season sustains life but brings with it the threat of floods, followed by a long stretch of the year when little gainful work is possible and the threat of famine looms. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, a series of interventions by Indian governments and other actors mitigated these conditions, enabling agricultural growth, encouraging urbanization, and bringing about a permanent decrease in death rates. But these actions—largely efforts to ensure wider access to water—came at a cost to environmental sustainability. In Monsoon Economies, Tirthankar Roy explores the interaction between the environment and the economy in the emergence of modern India.

Roy argues that the tropical monsoon climate makes economic and population growth contingent on water security. But in a water-scarce world, the means used to increase water security not only created environmental stresses but also made political conflict more likely. Roy investigates famine relief, the framing of a seasonal “water famine,” and the concept of public trust in water; the political movements that challenged socially sanctioned forms of deprivation; water as a public good; water quality in cities; the shift from impounding river water in dams and reservoirs to exploring groundwater; the seasonality of a monsoon economy; and economic lessons from India for a world facing environmental degradation.

Tirthankar Roy is Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of The Crafts and Capitalism: Handloom Weaving Industry in Colonial India and coauthor of The Economic History of Colonialism and Law and the Economy in a Young Democracy.

“Examining the high costs of India's success in managing water resources in a tropical monsoon climate, Tirthankar Roy guides historians and economists alike along a fresh path for interpreting the past and future environment.”
Alan Mikhail, Chace Family Professor of History, Yale University; author of Under Osman's Tree: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Environmental History

“Monsoon seasonality provides the framework for Roy to bring together the histories of modern India's economy with its experience with water scarcity. The book provides a model for integrating economic and environmental history.”
David Gilmartin, Professor of History, North Carolina State University

“In Monsoon Economies, Tirthankar Roy has turned his formidable talents to the environment, showing geography's crucial role in modern India's economic development.”
Prasannan Parthasarathi, Professor of History, Boston College

“Roy shows how water shaped India's development path by constraining the utility of land, labor, and capital, hence the nature of capitalism.”
Kaoru Sugihara, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, Japan

“Roy examines the economic life of South Asia through the prism of water, and shows his readers how this simple move requires a rethinking of much that we think we know about development, environment, and fairness. This is an eye-opening book.”
Jan de Vries, Professor Emeritus of History and Economics, University of California, Berkeley

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History for a Sustainable Future

Monsoon Economies

India's History in a Changing Climate

Paperback

$30.00

eBook

$29.99

History for a Sustainable Future

Monsoon Economies

India's History in a Changing Climate

Paperback

$30.00

eBook

$29.99

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