Era of India From Impoverished Colony to the World's Third-Largest Economy | A History of Colonialism, Wealth Transfer and India’s Economic Ascendance

In his seminal history textbook, The Age of India, Merchant's curriculum examines interconnected civilizational paths across centuries and millennia. For most of recorded history, living standards were broadly similar in the ancient world: Europe, Asia, and Africa.The discovery of the New World in the Americas and Australia brought about a radical change: catastrophic for some, and a blessing for others. Differences in per capita ​​income between Europeans and Asians were negligible in 1600. By 1900, this gap had widened exponentially. Europe emerged from plague and abject poverty into obscene wealth.Was this extraordinary turn of events a product of scientific discoveries, the industrial revolution, and technological innovation? Or have centuries of exploitative and invasive colonization, the 250-year transatlantic slave trade from Africa to the Americas, and colonial settlements in the New World led to the greatest transfer of wealth in history from East to West? More importantly, is it time for the West to pay reparations for three centuries of colonial conquest and enslavement beyond its borders?Using empirical data and deeply researched documentary evidence, Merchant's approach answers these questions in an engaging narrative of how India's ascent from a poor British colony in 1947 to the world's third-largest economy by 2030 will reshape the world order in the next quarter-century