Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with methodological debates, and explains fresh perspectives often by highlighting regional, micro-level conditions which had a wider impact. It offers a vital overview of responses to famine and dearth in early modern England, arguing that the “infrapolitics” of the people tried to maintain, in the face of economic and intellectual change and exchange, forms of social and governmental responses offering protection against the crisis of dearth. The book examines the role of popular protest, characterised by a disciplined violence, preferring negotiation, rather than reflecting the elite stereotypes of thievery, random violence, and disorder. It shows how themes and principles in British domestic travel writing familiar to Mundy were adapted by him to describe the topography, climate, politics, local resilience, and travel experiences during the Gujarat famine.