Research Summary
Research Summary
Overview
Description
Dr. Sheth's research focuses on Indian political economy and social history from the sixteenth century to the contemporary, concentrating on the relationship between business households, financial capital, landed rights, and the dissolution and formation of states. While conventional scholarship has offered peasant rebellion, colonial enterprise, and even the idiosyncratic traits of premodern rulers as explanations for historical change, his work has identified the key role that business households began playing in the politics of public authority and political finance in the eighteenth century. Focusing on the major urban hinterland and coastal areas of Gujarat in western India, he relies on manuscript sources in Persian and Gujarati, and archival materials in Sanskrit, French, Marathi, and English to analyze the increasing involvement of local businesspersons in the military labor market, the manipulation of currency, and the commodification of landed rights.