This book describes the ups and downs of the industrial path of Sri Lanka over the last half a century paying special attention to policy shifts and their consequences.

‘Citizenship and Statelessness in Sri Lanka’ analyses the context of the agreement between the Sri Lankan and Indian government that led to the loss of citizenship of Indian Tamil estate workers in Sri Lanka. Kanapathipillai broadens the focus of scholarship in this area by examining the economic, political and ideological issues that had a bearing on policy decisions.

The essays in this volume, written by well-known economists and social scientists, shed light on the intense national debates that accompanied the making of policy decisions in Sri Lanka. Studying the country's economy under six main headings: the ideology and strategy of economic development; macro-economic policy; the development of agriculture, industry and technology; employment and labour; institutional issues and governance; and social welfare, the book presents a comprehensive picture of contemporary Sri Lanka's economy.

This is the latest in the At the Polls series, in which Duke University Press has joined with the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research to publish studies on the electoral process as it functions around the world. Cited by Choice for its "high standard of scholarly analysis and objectivity," the series provides both a chronicle of events and a thorough analysis of the election results.

The preparation of this book has been a joint labor during the spare moments of the two authors, whose time has been occupied with subjects to which pearls are not wholly foreign—one as a gem expert, and the other in the fisheries branch of the American government. For many years the writers have collected data on the subject of pearls, and have accumulated all the obtainable literature, not only the easily procurable books, but likewise manuscripts, copies of rare volumes, original edicts, and legislative enactments, thousands of newspaper clippings, and interesting illustrations, many of them unique, making probably the largest single collection of data in existence on this particular subject. It was deemed advisable to present the results of these studies and observations in one harmonious volume, rather than in two different publications. While the book is a joint work in the sense that each writer has contributed material to all of the chapters and has critically examined and approved the entire work, the senior author has more closely applied himself to the latter half of the text, covering antiquity values, commerce, wearing manipulation, treatment, famous collections, aboriginal use, and the illustrations, while the junior author has attended to the earlier half of the book, with reference to history, origin, sources, fisheries, culture, mystical properties, and the literature of the pearl.