Roots and Routes of Development in China and India ― Highlights of Fifty Years of the Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient (1957-2007)

This volume brings together some of the very best of half a century of enduring scholarship in the Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. The selected articles show how historians have developed their understanding of economic and social change in China and India. As introduced by two of its current editors, these seminal studies not only demonstrate the crucial contributions of JESHO but also reflect the various scholarly tendencies in their respective fields. Hence this volume offers readers a unique opportunity to critically compare the historical and the historiographical roots and routes of the modern development of these two new global superpowers.

Jos Gommans has been the editor-in-chief of The Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient since 2006. His major publications areThe Rise of the Indo-Afghan Empire, c.1710-1780 (1994;1999); Dutch Sources on South Asia c.1600-1825 (2001); andMughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and Highroads to Empire 1500-1700 (2002); he has also edited five volumes. Since 1993 he has been associate professor of South Asian History at Leiden University's Kern Institute, and in 2008 was visiting professor at the College of William and Mary (Virginia, USA). At present, he is working on a monograph about the Dutch overseas empire.Harriet T. Zurndorfer has been associate professor of Chinese history at the Sinological Institute, Leiden University, since 1978. Her major publications include Change and Continuity in Chinese Local History: The Development of Hui-chou Prefecture 800–1800 (1989);China Bibliography: A Guide to Reference Works about China Past and Present (1995); andChinese Women in the Imperial Past: New Perspectives (editor, 1999). From 1991 to 2000 she was editor-in-chief of theJournal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. She also founded the journalNan Nu: Men, Women and Gender in China, which Brill has published since 1999. In 2000 she was elected to a visiting fellowship to All Souls College, Oxford; she has also been a visiting professor at the Sorbonne.