Explores the generative crisis in understanding property's role in the constitution of a liberal polity, which intersected in Bengal with a new politics of peasant independence based on practices of commodity exchange.
"Few books have the potential to transform a single debate; fewer show, as Andrew Sartori does here, that transforming it demands a profound reconceptualization of much more. To understand the relationship of liberalism and empire is to reconsider the meaning of liberalism anywhere and everywhere, and to locate liberal theory not solely in Western books but also in the density of global life. Sartori's masterpiece of critical history is an instant classic."
-Samuel Moyn, author of The Last Utopia
"This is a wonderfully challenging and original history. The combination of theoretical ambition and historical rigor will ensure that this text will be a catalyst for academic debate for years to come."
-Robert Travers, author of Ideology and Empire in Eighteenth Century India: The British in Bengal
"Impressive, thought-provoking ... the book makes a very nuanced and persuasive case."
