Dirk Herbert Arnold Kolff

Written work Kolff's Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in Hindustan, 1450–1850 (1990) was "an ethnohistory in a military setting", not "a military history with a focus of ethnicity", which according to Kolff was "undertaken at the confluence of anthropology, history and Indology". Kolff coined the term "military labour market", and in the book, introduced this concept on a wide scale in context of the northern region of India. According to University of Cambridge's Randolf G. S. Cooper, Kolff clarified the "understanding of the way in which military service had a life cycle or commodity exchange value that was integral to South Asian society and realpolitik". Cooper further stated that Kolff's work is of assistance in breaking the stereotypical image of the Rajputs as "the saffron robed warrior prince on horseback". Cooper, however, suggested that though Kolff attempted to provide a study of the subject matter from 1450 CE to 1850 CE, it was highly constricted to the 16th and 17th centuries "from the standpoint of functional strength".

University of Akron's A. Martin Wainwright noted that, in the book, Kolff shed light on the "historical pervasiveness of caste in Indian society" and the genesis of Indian State. Wainwright further observed that Kolff presented "new insights" into the "formation of state structures" and "character of peasant society" in India's northern region from the mid-15th century till the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and challenged the "long-held assumptions about the nature of military power and peasant society in northern India before British ascendance".

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