Bøker av Ranjan Chakrabarti

Climate, Calamity and the Wild: An Environmental History of the Bengal Delta, c.1737-1947 offers a climatic and environmental history of the deltaic plains of Bengal. Unlike the prevalent model of history-writing, this book tackles historical issues in ecological, biological and cultural terms, turning away from conventional ideological and political approaches. The volume examines how the delta's political economy, production, crop pattern, inland and overseas trade, demographic pattern, culture and economy developed and were transformed by shifts in climate, forests, river systems and hydrology. This involves an exploration of the complex dynamics of the interaction of human societies with the rich history of natural disasters such as super cyclones, severe thunderstorms and floods, resulting in loss of life, property, livestock, human settlements and wildlife as well as major shifts in the history of colonial Bengal.

Order and Disorder in Early Colonial Bengal: 1800-1860 investigates the mechanism of social control with reference to contemporary British administrative policies and the ideological background and colonial perceptions of law and justice. It also concentrates on the various social disorders faced by the colonial state at times when the society was relatively free from insurrectionary disturbances. It gives a detailed account of apparently less significant rural violence, dacoity, and rural riots in particular-which kept the local authorities on their toes-in the light of popular attitudes, prejudices, and perceptions of law and order vis-àvis the colonial one.