The Good Parsi the Fate of a Colonial Elite in a Postcolonial Society

Luhrmann, Tanya M

ISBN 10: 0674356756 / ISBN 13: 9780674356757

Published by Harvard University Press, 1996

This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has hardback covers. In good all round condition. No dust jacket. Library sticker on front cover. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,650grams, ISBN:0674356756. Seller Inventory # 5766401

Synopsis:

During the Raj, one group stands out as having prospered and thrived because of British rule: the Parsis. Driven out of Persia into India a thousand years ago, the Zoroastrian people adopted the manners, dress, and aspirations of their British colonizers, and their Anglophilic activities ranged from cricket to Oxford to tea. The British were fulsome in their praise of the Parsis and rewarded them with high-level financial, mercantile, and bureaucratic posts. The Parsis dominated Bombay for more than a century. But Indian independence ushered in their decline. Tanya Luhrmann vividly portrays a crisis of confidence, of self-criticism, and perpetual agonizing.

This story highlights the dilemmas and paradoxes of all who danced the colonial tango. Luhrmann's analysis brings startling insights into a whole range of communal and individual identity crises and what could be called "identity politics" of this century. In a candid last chapter the author confronts another elite in crisis: an anthropology in flux, uncertain of its own authority and its relation to the colonizers.

About the Author: Tanya M. Luhrmann is Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of California, San Diego.

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Good Parsi the Fate of a Colonial ...
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication Date: 1996
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Good