Contents: 1. Introduction. 2. From Agriculture, Untouchability and Social Distance to Entry into the Military: Life of the Paraiyars and Pallars in the Early Modern Age. 3. Life of the Goldsmiths, lacksmiths, Stone Masons and Carpenters between Town and Village in the Medieval and Early Modern Age. 5. Sordid Trade in Human Flesh: Voyages of the Portuguese, Dutch and the English from the Tamil Coast during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. 6. Slavery and Social Death: Slaves and Trading Voyages of the Danes, Dutch and the French from the Tamil Coast during the Eighteenth Century .7. . Conclusion. .Bibliography. Index. This book explores the remarkable everyday life-worlds of the common people in Tamil country and examines the struggles of the agricultural workers, non-agricultural labour, fishermen and the slaves. It provides a realistic combination of individual human beings and groups hitherto considered too low for elite treatment in Tamil history. The author skillfully traces the social connections and networks, and how the subaltern groups lived in the age of expanding European commercial activities on the Tamil coast and hinterland by deciphering the connections from the medieval period to the birth of colonial modernity.