Thatched huts and stucco palaces: peasants and landlords in 19th - century Nepal c.2

This is the first volume of a projected two-volume study on Nepal's economic history during the nineteenth century.
The study is based on an approach to history that recognizes it as "a dialogue between past and present." Inasmuch as economic development is the leading national slogan in Nepal today, it makes an attempt to explore some of the historical and institutional constraints facing such development.
Thatched Huts and Stucco Palaces, therefore, concentrates on relations between the state and the landowning elites on the one hand and the peasant on the other, in order to identify those parasitic groups and e the form and nature of their share in agricultural production.
Essentially empirical in nature, the book will prove to be of equal interest to scholars studying different aspects of Nepal's economy, society and politics. In particular, it may help explain how the Ranas were able to sustain their family rule for over a century, and why efforts towards agrarian reform in Nepal since the 1950s have not had the desired measure of success.