Rural south Asia : linkages, change and development / edited by Peter Robb

The present book comprises those contributions which bore particularly on questions of change in rela tion to economic development. The intention is to con centrate on linkages between localities and the outside world, and in general between what may be defined as intrinsic to a given society and what may be called external. The essays are illustrative of the subject; this volume does not pretend to be a survey and has no pretensions to being regionally or thematically compre hensive. Four papers, those by Eric Meyer, Nurit Bird, Gyan Pandey and Dick Kooiman, examine the response of South Asian societies specifically to the introduction of 'modern' features of production: plantations, foreign imports or capitalist industry. Four more papers treat aspects of external linkages in particular relation to economic development: that by Walter Neale on the role of the money-lender as 'culture broker', that by H.G. Hanumappa and John Adam on the physical communication between villagers and nearby towns, and those of Ghan shyam Shah and Paul Brass on recent development efforts

and different responses to technological advances. The conference and therefore this publication would not have been possible without the financial assistance of the Projects Committee at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and that assistance is gratefully acknowledged.