Mircea Raianu

I am a historian of capitalism and economic life broadly construed, with a regional specialization in modern South Asia. My first book, Tata: The Global Corporation That Built Indian Capitalism (Harvard University Press, 2021), focused on India’s largest and most influential business group from the mid-19th to the late 20thc. It showed how private capital played a key role in the construction of the national economy, alternately acting in concert with and in opposition to the state.

In parallel, I have worked on a series of related journal articles, including studies of land and labor on the mineral frontier of eastern India and intellectual histories of Indian capitalism. Occasionally, I write about other subjects in science and medicine, literature, and the visual arts.

My current book project examines transnational exchanges of heterodox economic thought from the 1940s to the 1970s, encompassing alternative forms of corporate organization and diverse technological and ecological imaginaries.

At Maryland, I teach courses on the history of global capitalism, South Asia, and the Indian Ocean world. I am also affiliated with the Ed Snider Center for Enterprise and Markets at the Robert H. Smith School of Business.

Note to prospective graduate students: I am eager to supervise MA theses and serve on PhD committees in any of my areas of expertise. I only supervise PhD dissertations if significant overlap exists with other faculty in the department, mainly focusing on capitalism and in the field of GIE (Global Interaction and Exchange). Applicants interested in modern South Asia must have a strong comparative or transnational aspect to their research.