This volume examines the history of enterprise and entrepreneurial communities in South Asia from the beginning of the eighteenth to mid nineteenth century. Roy examines how enterprise and entrepreneurial communities adapted to globalization and colonial law. He analyses forms of merchant organization in pre-colonial and colonial India; impact of commercialism on artisans collectives; linkages between institutional change and peasant lineage; interplay between new work opportunities, managerial paradigms, and organized labour supply ; relationship between state, economic order, and business organizations. With bibliography and index.