Stones of Empire: The Buildings of the Raj - Hardcover

Morris, Jan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0192114492 ISBN 13: 9780192114495

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1984

Synopsis

No empire in history built so variously as the British empire in India. The buildings there attest to the richness of an imperial presence that lasted--from the first trading settlement to the end of the Raj--some three hundred years. The attitude of the British to India was compounded partly of arrogance, but partly also of homesickness, and it shows in their constructions. Georgian terraces were adapted to tropical conditions, Victorian railway stations were elaborately orientalized, seaside villas were adjusted to suit Himalayan conditions, and everywhere the fundamental ambivalence of the British empire, a baffling mixture of good and evil, was mirrored in the imperial architecture.

This book, now reissued with an introduction by Simon Winchester, was the first to describe the whole range of British constructions in India. The text and photographs illustrate these buildings not simply as physical objects, but as reflections of an empire's mingled emotions. Stones of Empire charts an enterprise in architecture, engineering, and social adaptation unique in human history.

About this title

About the Author:

Jan Morris is an Honorary Fellow of the University College of Wales. Her many publications include Venice, The Pax Brittania Trilogy, The Oxford Book of Oxford, and The Matter of Wales. Simon Winchester is the author of the bestsellers The Map That Changed the World, The Professor and the Madman, and Krakatoa.

Review:

`Review from previous edition '...magical prose and marvellous photographs''
Sunday Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1984
• ISBN 10: 0192114492
• ISBN 13: 9780192114495
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240