Transition and Development in India [Paperback]

Anjan Chakrabarti (Author), Stephen Cullenberg (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415934869 | ISBN-13: 978-0415934862 | Publication Date: February 2003 | Edition: 1

According to Nehru, the transition from a backward agricultural society to a modern industrialized society was the only road for India to progress. So, for the past few decades, India has focused its transitional development around movement away from a state-controlled economy toward that of a free market economy. Transition and Development in India challenges the current basis of this theory of development, laying the groundwork for an entirely new Marxist approach to transition that should apply not just to India, but to all developing nations.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Cullenberg and Chakrabarti's work on India succeeds beautifully in rethinking many of the classical Marxist understandings of class, labor, history, and change, yet within an engaged, committed critique of capitalist political economy..
–Lisa Lowe, co-editor of The Politics of Culture in the Shadow of Capital

An energetic, imaginative defense of postmodern Marxist theory. More impressively, they have provided a lucid and utterly undogmatic analysis of the moment of economic transition. This book will be useful for all those interested in contemporary changes not only in India but also the rest of the world..
–Amitava Kumar, author of Bombay-London-New York

The authors do an admirable job of reviewing the relevant literature on the 'transition to capitalism' in India, formulating important points of criticism of that literature, and presenting their alternative notion of transition and applying it to the current debate concerning economic liberalization in India. Their treatment is both thorough and balanced, providing both background material for relative novices and challenging theses for more advanced readers..
–David Ruccio, co-author of Postmodern Moments in Modern Economics

Transition and Development in India will irritate, and hopefully stimulate, orthodox Marxists and non-Marxists alike. Chakrabarti and Cullenberg dissect the debates in India over modes of production and subaltern studies and offer a reformulated, postmodernist Marxist theory to shed light on the economic reforms introduced in India after 1991. This book is essential reading for those who want to know the direction in which modern Marxism is going..
–Keith Griffin, author of Alternative Strategies for Economic Development

About the Author

Stephen Cullenburg is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Riverside and a former editor of Rethinking Marxism. Anjan Chakrabarti is Professor of Economics at the University of Calcutta.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (February 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415934869
• ISBN-13: 978-0415934862
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,359,925 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A success on many levels, August 7, 2007

By 

Asatar Bair (Tucson, AZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Transition and Development in India (Paperback)

This splendid book has no shortage of fresh insights into the process of economic development in India during the modern era. It succeeds in explaining what is at stake in the debate over how to achieve economic development, how these debates have shaped (and been shaped by) Marxist, Keynesian, and classical economic theory, and how the lens through which we view economic development illuminates certain aspects of the society while obscuring others.

The book applies and extends the postmodern Marxist class analysis of Resnick and Wolff (see "Knowledge and Class", "Class Theory and History", and "Economics: Marxian vs. Neoclassical"), who are influenced by such thinkers as Althusser, Balibar, Gramsci, Lukacs, Adorno, and others. The book offers an interesting use of the class theory, taking it in a slightly new direction. I highly recommend this book to all serious students of development, class theory, and the recent history of India.