The Company Weavers of Bengal: The East India Company and the Organization of Textile Production in Bengal, 1750-1813

The collapse of the weaving industry in eighteenth-century Bengal has been the subject of considerable controversy. While it has been held that the decline was caused by a stagnant system of production, historians have also argued that the problem was a symptom of colonialism, and lay in the fundamental conflict of interests between British investment in the Indian textile industry and the ‘home’ manufacturing groups. The present volume contributes fresh evidence and arguments to this subject.