The peasant production of opium in nineteenth-century India / by Rolf Bauer.

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2019

xiii, 220 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm.

"The Peasant Production of Opium in 19th Century India is a pioneering work about the more than one million peasants who produced opium for the colonial state in nineteenth-century India. Based on a profound empirical analysis, Rolf Bauer not only shows that the peasants cultivated poppy against a substantial loss but he also reveals how they were coerced into the production of this drug. By dissecting the economic and social power relations on a local level, this study explains how a triangle of debt, the colonial state's power and social dependencies in the village formed the coercive mechanisms that transformed the peasants into opium producers. The result is a book that adds to our understanding of peasant economies in a colonial context"-- Provided by publisher.

Online version: Bauer, Rolf, 1984- author. Peasant production of opium in nineteenth-century India Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2019]

English

August 08, 2019

Includes bibliographical references and index.