History Department Faculty
Prasannan Parthasarathi
Professor and Chairperson of the Department
Prasannan Parthasarathi
Ph.D.
Contact
Stokes Hall S323
Telephone: 617-552-1579
Email: prasannan.parthasarathi@bc.edu
ORCID 0000-0002-6378-4194
Education
- Ph.D., Harvard University
Research Interests
Modern South Asian history; global history; labor history; economic history; environmental history
Expertise
- South Asia
- Economic History, Labor, & Migration
- Environment & Food Sustainability
- History
Department
Biography
Professor Parthasarathi joined the faculty in the fall of 1998. He teaches courses on
modern South Asia, global history, and environmental history. He is now engaged
in a study of environmental change, agriculture, and labor in nineteenth-century South India. His research has been supported by fellowships from the Dibner Institute, the American Council for Learned Societies, and the Radcliffe Institute. He serves on the editorial boards of a number of journals, among them International Labor and Working Class History, Textile History, and the Medieval History Journal. In 2020, he co-curated “Indian Ocean Current: Six Artistic Narratives” at the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College.
Representative Publications
Indian Ocean Current: Six Artistic Narratives (Chestnut Hill, Mass., 2020)
“New Directions in Economic and Social History: Essays in Honour of David Washbrook,” A Special Issue of Modern Asian Studies, 51, 2 (March 2017)
“Forests and a New Energy Economy in Nineteenth-Century Tamilnad,” in Gareth Austin (ed.), Economic Development and Environmental History in the Anthropocene: Perspectives on Asia and Africa (London: Bloomsbury Books, 2017), pp. 145-58
“Water and Agriculture in Nineteenth-Century Tamilnad,” Modern Asian Studies, 51, 2 (March 2017), pp. 485-510
Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence 1600-1850 (Cambridge, 2011) - Received the Jerry Bentley Book Prize of the World History Association and was named a Choice magazine outstanding academic title
The Spinning World: A Global History of Cotton Textiles, 1200-1850 (Oxford, 2009)
"The State of Indian Social History," Journal of Social History (2003)
"The Great Divergence," Past and Present (August 2002)
The Transition to A Colonial Economy: Weavers, Merchants and Kings in South India, 1720-1800 (Cambridge, 2001)
"Rethinking Wages and Competitiveness in the Eighteenth Century: Britain and South India," Past and Present (1998)