REVIEW ARTICLE 95 (empire-created zones) and the continuation of Indian segments (indigenously produced, provincial level) at another level (p. 181). The book is a refreshing intervention for two reasons. Firstly, an attempt is made to study medieval North India with a segmentary approach which becomes an interesting beginning for future historical debates. Secondly, the book comes out of the typically decline-oriented studies of Irfan Habib, N.A. Siddiqi and Satish Chandra. NOTES AND REFERENCES 1. Irfan Habib's The Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1556-1707 (Bombay, 1963) pioneered this school. This was followed by a host of other historians. See Athar Ali, The Mughal Nobility Under Aurangazeb (Bombay, 1966); N.A. Siddiqi, Land Revenue Administration Under the Mughals, 1700-1750 (Bombay, 1970); Shireen Moosvi, The Economy of the Mughal empire c. 1795 (Delhi, 1988); and Z.U. Malik, 'Core and Periphery: A Contribution to the Debate on the Eighteenth Century', in Social Scientist, Vol. 18, Nos. 11-12, November-December 1990. 2. Z.U. Malik, ibid., p. 6. 3. This stereotyped state penetrative approach is common to almost all the Aligarh historians, despite the nature of historical tools used. The protagonists of the centre-oriented approach borrowed most of these 'Mughal' concepts and applied them to other regions as well. These historians gave almost the same picture of a powerful centre, landed fiscal elites, bureaucratic administration, etc. See K. A. Nilakanta Shastri, A History of South India from the Pre-historic Times to the Vijayanagara Empire (Delhi, 1982), and J.F. Richards, Mughal Administration in Golconda (Delhi, 1975). 4. Burton Stein, Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India (Delhi, 1980); 'State Formation and Economy Reconsidered', in Modem Asian Studies, Vol. 19, No. 131, 1985, pp. 387-413; 'Politics, Peasants and De-construction of Feudalism in Medieval India', in J.J. Byres and Harbans Mukhia (eds.), Feudalism and Non-European Societies (London, 1985), pp. 55-86. 5. Burton Stein, Peasant State and Society, p. 269. 6. Ibid., pp. 264-65. 7. For Burton Stein, until the time of Tipu Sultan, no military regime, Hindu or Muslim, was able to shift most of its income from tribute to revenue directly collected by the state officials. Thus for Stein, the political entities in South India were tributary based till the eighteenth century. It was only in the eighteenth century that the state faced military constraints which made them look for regular income. See Burton Stein, 'State Formation', pp. 392-93. 8. R. Champakalakshmi, 'The State in Medieval South India: Emerging Perspectives', Presidential Address, Historiography Section, Andhra Pradesh History Congress, Srisailam, 1989, p. 266. 9. Sanjay Subramanyam, 'Aspects of State Formation in South India and South East Asia, 1500-1650', in Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. 23, No. 4, October-December 1986, pp. 357-77; 'Persians, Pilgrims and Portuguese: The Travails of Masulipatnam Shipping in the Western Indian Ocean, 1590-1665', in Modem Asian Studies, Vol. XXII (3), 1988, pp. 503-30; The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India 1500-1700 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990); and also his article with C.A. Bayly, 'Portfolio Capitalists and the Political Economy in Early Modem India', in Merchants, Markets and the State in Early Modem India (Delhi, 1990) pp. 242-65.