Dialogue and history : constructing South India, 1795-1895 / Eugene F. Irschick.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Irschick, Eugene F.

Contributor:

American Council of Learned Societies.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

India, South--History.

India, South.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 263 p. ) maps ;

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c1994.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Eugene Irschick deftly questions the conventional wisdom that knowledge about a colonial culture is unilaterally defined by its rulers. Focusing on nineteenth-century South India, he demonstrates that a society's view of its history results from a "dialogic process" involving all its constituencies.For centuries, agricultural life in South India was seminomadic. But when the British took dominion, they sought to stabilize the region by inventing a Tamil "golden age" of sedentary, prosperous villages. Irschick shows that this construction resulted not from overt British manipulation but from an intricate cross-pollination of both European and native ideas. He argues that the Tamil played a critical role in constructing their past and thus shaping their future. And British administrators adapted local customs to their own uses.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Maps and Tables

Preface

Acknowledgments

Transliteration and Other Conventions

Introduction

1. To Fix the People to Their Respective Villages

2. Using the Past to Create the Future

3. The Rise and Consolidation of the Chingleput Mirasidars

4. From Slaves to the Original Dravidians

Conclusion

Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-255) and index.

ISBN:

0-520-91432-5

0-585-33993-7

OCLC:

1148115600

Publisher Number:

2027/heb08866 hdl