Nabendu Sen Memorial Lecture

The first Prof. Nabendu Sen Memorial Lecture was successfully held on January 10, 2025, at 3:30 PM in the PC Mahalanobis Auditorium. The lecture, titled "Land or Sea? How Geography Shaped the Emergence of Colonialism in Asia and Africa," was delivered by Tirthankar Roy, Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics.

Abstract:
Why did seaborne trade lead to global empires? Before the 18th century, European power was negligible compared to the interior states that ruled inland Asia or Africa. The Europeans in question were merchants and had little income besides returns on business investment. The interior states, at least in South Asia, had large armies and a robust tax system to finance warfare. Why did the balance of power shift so radically? Most answers to this question now available build around the profile of the merchants, their propensity and opportunity to play politics, or the capacity of the indigenous states to resist these moves. The talk will take a different line and suggest that environmental factors mattered, too. A specific combination of secure resource access, low famine risk, modest trade costs, and agglomeration advantages emerged in the seaboard around commercial activity in the 18th century, enabling the consolidation of power along the coast. 

Video recording