Celebrating a Study of India’s Agrarian History

Shireen Moosvi

Abstract: The year 2013 marks the fifti­eth an­niver­sary of the pub­li­ca­tion of Irfan Habib’s The Agrarian System of Mughal India. The book was a re­vised and en­larged ver­sion of a D. Phil. the­sis sub­mit­ted in 1958 at the Uni­ver­sity of Ox­ford, where the au­thor had gone on a Gov­ern­ment of India schol­ar­ship from 1955 to 1958. This Special Essay reviews and analyses the main features of a book that remains a landmark, and which, upon publication, struck even its critics as being singular in a seemingly well-worn field.