Handlooms and Empire

Cloth and Commerce: Textiles in Colonial India edited by Tirthankar Roy; Sage Publications, New Delhi, 1996; pp 338, Rs 425, THE focus of this book is on the handloom sector in India during the colonial period. Articles on this theme previously published in the Indian Economic and Social History Review have been selected and arranged so that there emerges a long-term view of the Indian textile industry from the 17th century to pre-independence 20th century. The two basic premises which provide the broad contextual background for this book are: the hypothesis of