Ecologies of empire in South Asia, 1400-1900 / Sumit Guha.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Guha, Sumit, author.

Series:

Culture, place, and nature

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human ecology--South Asia.

Human ecology.

Landscapes--Social aspects--South Asia.

Landscapes.

Land use--Social aspects--South Asia.

Land use.

Human beings--Effect of environment on--South Asia.

Human beings.

South Asia--Social life and customs.

South Asia.

Human beings--Effect of environment on.

Land use--Social aspects.

Landscapes--Social aspects.

Manners and customs.

Physical Description:

xvi, 243 pages : maps ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Seattle : University of Washington Press, [2023]

Summary:

"By focusing on the human gaze, or how people interpret their relationship with land, Sumit Guha traces the longue durée of the political ecology of empire in South Asia during the age of empires. This relationship is in most sharp relief when comparing the exploitative and extractive practices of the Mughal Empire and the industrial British Raj as these imperial regimes encountered a large and old agrarian society. While scholars of South Asia regularly dwell on the destructive nature of British policies in South Asia, Guha integrates the cultural turn in environmental studies with the complex imperial rivalries that defined South Asia from the fifteenth through the mid-twentieth century to demonstrate how land use is defined through matrices of competing geographic expertise, too often in service of distant courts and environmental degradation"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Inequality, complexity, and ecology

South Asia in the imperial gaze

Imperial gaze, lordly grasp

The village and its inhabitants

Lands of resistance, terrains of refuge

Colonialism, disarmament, and the closing of the forest frontier.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780295751481

0295751487

9780295751498

0295751495

OCLC:

1348286186

Publisher Number:

99994915128