This volume of A History of Agriculture in India third in the series. Deals with the history of agriculture in India during the colonial period from 1757. when the foundation of the British Empire was laid in this. Country by Robert Clive., to 1947, when the Colonial rule ended and India became independent. The rise of the British colonialism in the wake of the
. Portuguese and the Dutch colonialism is closely connected with the Euro- pean Age of Exploration. The countries of Europe facing the Atlantic, namely Spain, Portugal, England, Holland and France, became sea-powers and the centres of commercial activity. The economic and technological changes in Europe in the seventeenth century as a result of expanded trade influenced the growth of science in Europe. The commercial revolution in England at the close of the sixteenth century stimulated the ship-building industry. The emergence of the East India Company on 31 December
1600 during the reign ofQueen Elizabeth is one of the results of the commer- cial revolution.