When this book was originally published in 1989 here had been virtually no studies of the country’s historical demography. This volume was significant for 3 reasons: it contributed greatly to the knowledge of India’s population history; it had major implications for the work of social and economic historians of India; and lastly the Indian context provides an excellent laboratory in which to investigate certain large-scale demographic phenomena – among others the experience of bubonic plague, influenza, cholera and famine.
This book presents a history of India's population for the period stretching from when hunter-gatherer homo sapiens first arrived in the country (very roughly seventy thousand years ago) until the modern day. It draws together archaeology, history, and politics to reveal a surprising and often dramatic story.
A Population History of India provides an account of the size and characteristics of India's population stretching from when hunter-gatherer homo sapiens first arrived in the country - very roughly seventy thousand years ago - until the modern day. It is a period during which the population grew from just a handful of people to reach almost 1.4 billion, and a time when the fact of death had a huge influence on the nature of life. This book considers the millennia that were characterized by hunting and gathering, the Indus valley civilization, the opening-up of the Ganges river basin, and the eras of the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughal Empire, British colonial rule, and India since independence. By observing India through a demographic lens, A Population History of India: From the First Modern People to the Present Day addresses mortality, fertility, the size of cities, patterns of migration, and the multitude of famines, epidemics, invasions, wars, and other events that affected the population. It draws together research from archaeology, cultural studies, economics, epidemiology, linguistics, history, and politics to understand the likely trajectory of India's population in comparison to the trends that applied to Europe and China, and to reveal a surprising and dramatic story.
Disease and Demography in Colonial Burma is an examination of the factors that shaped demographic change in Burma between 1852 and 1941. Despite increasing contemporary interest in the historical demography of the non-European world, there has been little detailed exploration of Burma's extensive but problematic population records. Judith Richell developed a demographic framework for Burma by analysing late nineteenth century and early twentieth century census data, and used this information to analyse population change within the country. Colonial Burma experienced relatively high rates of mortality, and Richell related this phenomenon to nutrition, the development of sanitary and health services, the impact of migration from India, and agricultural change. She also assessed infant, child and adult mortality, the incidence of endemic diseases such as beri beri and malaria, and outbreaks of plague and cholera as well as the influenza pandemic of 1918. The data the author collected and her discussion of these topics provide an exceptionally valuable resource for scholars interested in Burma, demography and public health in Southeast Asia. Book jacket.
