ERASING THE BINARY DISTINCTION OF DEVELOPED AND UNDERDEVELOPED: Comparative Study of the Emergence of the Large Scale Steel Industry in Imperial Russia, Imperial Britain, Imperial America, and co

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ERASING THE BINARY DISTINCTION OF DEVELOPED AND UNDERDEVELOPED:Comparative Study of the Emergence of the Large Scale Steel Industry in Imperial Russia, Imperial Britain, Imperial America, and colonial India 1880-1914

This book challenges the binary distinction of developed and underdeveloped in the categorization of any country while proposing to erase this binary with a yardstick of parity, which, the author believes, is naturally rooted in human creativity as human beings are one of the many creative expressions of Nature. Through a sample comparative historical study focusing on the queston of the emergence of the large-scale steel industry (1880-1914) of four chosen countries, two considered "developed" (Imperial UK and Post-colonial Imperial USA) and two considered "underdeveloped" (Imperial Russia and Colonial India), it is shown how this yardstick of parity can be applied without the categorization of societies as either developed or underdeveloped. The author hopes that this will help to remove the baseless, irrelevant and humilitating labels of "lacking" and "not yet" from so-called "underdeveloped" countries and open a concepual space wherein it would be possible to imagine an alternative theoretical framework that is mired, along with the sense of fatalism and hopelessness that accompanies it.

Vinay Bahl, presently a non-affiliated research scholar, taught historical sociology in the United States for many years. She received her Ph.D. degree in Sociology from Binghamton University, New York and M. Phil degree in Modern Indian History from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. She was an invited guest scholar of the College de France, Paris, for one academic year. She was also an Asso- ciate Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies in Amsterdam.She has published three books: What Went Wrong With “History From Below”: Reinstating Human Agency as Human Creativity; History After the Three Worlds: Post-Eurocentric Historiographies (co-edited);The Making of the Indian Working Class: The Case Study of the Tata Iron and Steel Co. 1880-1946.She has also published numerous articles in various scholarly journals and book chapters on subjects ranging from industrialization, working class, caste system, south Asian women’s apparel, global women, social movements, historiography, cul- ture, and Dhrupad form of Indian classical music.