ABSTRACT
One of the more remarkable but neglected features of the growth of commercial capitalism on an international scale from the sixteenth century, consists of widespread processes of monetization affecting a number of Asian societies, and especially India. This was in turn connected with commercialization of both agrarian and urban economy, and the development of markets and manufactures. The trade in precious metals, especially silver, is well known, not the least the international division of labour upon which it depended at an early stage in the growth of commercial capitalism, and also the steady drain of valuable payments-media into Asia, and especially India and China. A great phase of state development begins in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one especially well-documented example being that of eighteenth and nineteenth century Asante. These developments, embracing the growth of new forms of power, of lordships, bureaucratic mechanisms and new conquest states, coincide with the growth of the slave trade.
