This book deals with maritime workers, seafarers and merchant shipping in the Indian subcontinent during a crucial period of the British Empire. It examines the recruitment and control of coolies and seafarers, their social and regional composition, wages, itineraries, work, voyages, as well as patterns of resistance. This volume also explores the importance of Indian labour in the context of European merchant shipping. It provides a detailed account of development of shipping industry and economic life in the subcontinent-ship owners and their organizations, voyages and destinations, private intermediaries, city and port life, industrial and commercial centres, and colonial economic policies. The author also evaluates the position of India in the world economy in the period of late capitalism and high imperialism, interweaving the mutually reinforcing contexts of colonialism and globalization.

This book will be of considerable interest to scholars and students of modern Indian history, labour studies, and economics.