ABSTRACT
At two ends of the span of time being considered in this study, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on the one hand and the late twentieth on the other, India remained one of the world's leading producers and exporters of textiles. This time span was punctuated by several major shifts. The transition from early modern trade to nineteenth-century industrialization, the transition from free trade to autarky in the mid-twentieth century and the return to globalization at the end of the millennium led to drastic and far-reaching changes in the textile industry. And yet, some fundamental elements proved remarkably durable.
