Ideologies of the Raj: 04 (The New Cambridge History of India)

New
Illustrated
1997
$26.56

Ideologies of the Raj examines how the British sought to justify their rule over India. The author argues that two divergent strategies were devised to legitimate their authority: the one defined characteristics which the Indians shared with the British themselves, while the other emphasised qualities of enduring 'difference'. In the end, however, the differences predominated in the colonial view of India. Since the British constructed few explicit ideologies of empire, the author explores the workings of the Raj through the study of its underlying assumptions as revealed in policies and writings. Students of modern India and the British Empire will find Thomas Metcalf's book relevant and accessible.

Synopsis

Ideologies of the Raj examines how the British sought to justify their rule over India. The author argues that two divergent strategies were devised to legitimate their authority: the one defined characteristics which the Indians shared with the British themselves, while the other emphasised qualities of enduring 'difference'. In the end, however, the differences predominated in the colonial view of India. Since the British constructed few explicit ideologies of empire, the author explores the workings of the Raj through the study of its underlying assumptions as revealed in policies and writings. Students of modern India and the British Empire will find Thomas Metcalf's book relevant and accessible.

$26.56

Quantity

10 in stock

More Information

Format: Illustrated
Pages: 258
Edition: Revised ed.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 27 Feb 1997
ISBN 10: 0521589371
ISBN 13: 9780521589376
Book Overview: Thomas Metcalf's fascinating study examines the ways the British sought to legitimate their rule over India.

Media Reviews

'It is a tribute to the range of Metcalf's scholarship that he can write illuminatingly and with assured authority on so many different aspects of British India.' P. J. Marshall, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
The research of half a lifetime informs every page he writes--and he writes well. Ideologies of the Raj is consistently clear and fluent. The Times Literary Supplement
This volume is an excellent survey of one aspect of this intellectual encounter....Metcalf at his best in elucidating the complex ideas that dominated British thinking in the late nineteenth century....The sure touch of an astute and well-read scholar is apparent as Metcalf discusses these issues and a wide range of individuals and intellectual movements. Lynn Zastoupil, Victorian Studies
This volume is an excellent survey of one aspect of this intellectual encounter....Metcalf at his best in elucidating the complex ideas that dominated British thinking in the late nineteenth century....The sure touch of an astute and well-read scholar is apparent as Metcalf discusses these issues and a wide range of individuals and intellectual movements. Lynn Zastoupil, Victorian Studies
...this is a welcome addition to the growing scholarship on intellectuals and imperialism....These and other new studies complement Metcalf's fine book by helping to clarify that the intellectual encounter between rulers and ruled was a complex and multi-faceted one, in which ideas flowed in both directions and ideologies were jointly constructed by, and were mutually useful to, various groups in both Britain and the subcontinent. Lynn Zastoupil, Victorian Studies