Serving Empire, Serving Nation : James Tod and the Rajputs of Rajasthan

Freitag, Jason

ISBN 10: 9004175946 / ISBN 13: 9789004175945

Published by Brill, 2009

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 6420282-n

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Serving Empire, Serving Nation : James Tod and the Rajputs of Rajasthan
• Publisher: Brill
• Publication Date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9004175946
• ISBN 13: 9789004175945
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

James Tod’s Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan was crucial in forming the modern image of the Rājpūt, a princely “martial” caste resident in India’s northwest desert. This book explores the relationships between the political power of the British imperial state, the construction of historical memories in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the uses of these constructions by European writers and Indian nationalist elites. The case of the Rajputs demonstrates how imperial histories reflected Indian social processes and pre-colonial forms of knowledge, interpreted India for the world outside and for Indians themselves. This book explores the multiple discourses within Tod’s Rajasthan, and European Orientalism, to show how intricately coded the British Empire was and, historically, remains.

About the Author

Jason Freitag, Ph.D. (2001) in Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University is an Assistant Professor of History at Ithaca College. His research interests include the Britsh Empire in India, historiography, and European Orientalism.