Description
Book SynopsisSouth Asian History has enjoyed a remarkable renaissance over the past thirty years. Its historians are not only producing new ways of thinking about the imperial impact and legacy on South Asia, but also helping to reshape the study of imperial history in general. The essays in this collection address a number of these important developments, delineating not only the complicated interplay between imperial rulers and their subjects in India, but also illuminating the economic, political, environmental, social, cultural, ideological, and intellectual contexts which informed, and were in turn informed by, these interactions. Particular attention is paid to a cluster of binary oppositions that have hitherto framed South Asian history, namely colonizer/colonized, imperialism/nationalism, and modernity/tradition, and how new analytical frameworks are emerging which enable us to think beyond the constraints imposed by these binaries. Closer attention to regional dynamics as well as to wider
Trade ReviewThe fact that many of the contributors to this book are highly regarded, well-established scholars of Britain's occupation of India immediately guarantees the book's importance for other scholars in the field. It does not fail to deliver, because many of the essays provide original arguments thoroughly taking account of the strengths and weaknesses of the past thirty years of historical scholarship ... India and the British Empire therefore makes a valuable contribution to the field of its title by presenting up-to-date assessments of the wide variety of scholarly approaches used to understand the impact of India's period of British occupation on both the occupied and the occupier * A. Martin Wainwright, Journal of British Studies *
... this compilation provides a good introduction to the areas covered, as well as offering an interesting and challenging interpretation of the areas that should interest scholars already working in the field ... Overall, this is an interesting and valuable contribution to the field of Empire and Indian history * Lindsay Henderson, Australian Journal of Politics and History *
Table of Contents1. Introduction ; 2. State, Power, and Colonialism ; 3. The Indian Economy and the British Empire ; 4. Knowledge Formation in Colonial India ; 5. Colonialism and Social Identities in Flux: Class, Caste, and Religious Community ; 6. Nationalisms in India ; 7. Law, Authority, and Colonial Rule ; 8. Networks of Knowledge: Science and Medicine in Early Colonial India ; 9. Environment and Ecology under British Rule ; 10. Material and Visual Culture of British India ; 11. Literary Modernity in South Asia ; 12. Gendering of Public and Private Selves in Colonial Times ; 13. The Desi Diaspora: Politics, Protest, and Nationalism ; 14. The Political Legacy of Colonialism in South Asia
