Book excerpt: The book reflects a process of inter-disciplinary dialogue between historians, economists and anthropologists, at a time when the discipline of economic history in South Asia has entered something of a crisis. It is a collection of well-researched, in-depth essays, which are at the same timeconcerned with linking up their specific concerns with larger issues of the institutional trajectory of South Asia. Traditionally, economics has neglected the role played by institutions in linking micro- and macro-levels of economic functioning. Here, authors like A. K. Bagchi, Claude Markovits, G.Balachandran, Barabar Harriss-White, Sumit Guha and David Ludden bring their collective expertise to bear on the issue.