English Siege and Prison Writings

English Siege and Prison Writings PDF Author: Pramod K. Nayar
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131530077X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description
This volume brings together an unusual collection of British captivity writings – composed during and after imprisonment and in conditions of siege. Writings from the ‘Mutiny’ of 1857 are well known, but there exists a vast body of texts, from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Burma, and the Indian subcontinent, that have rarely been compiled or examined. Written in anxiety and distress, or recalled with poignancy and anger, these siege narratives depict a very different Briton. A far cry from the triumphant conqueror, explorer or ruler, these texts give us the vulnerable, injured and frightened Englishman and woman who seek, in the most adverse of conditions, to retain a measure of stoicism and identity. From Robert Knox’s 17th-century account of imprisonment in Sri Lanka, through J. Z. Holwell’s famous account of the ‘Black Hole’ of Calcutta, through Florentia Sale’s Afghan memoir, and Lady Inglis’s ‘Mutiny’ diary from Lucknow, the book opens up a dark and revealing corner of the colonial archive. Lucid and intriguing, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of modern South Asia, colonial history, literary and culture studies.

English Siege and Prison Writings

English Siege and Prison Writings PDF Author: Pramod K. Nayar
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131530077X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 510

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume brings together an unusual collection of British captivity writings – composed during and after imprisonment and in conditions of siege. Writings from the ‘Mutiny’ of 1857 are well known, but there exists a vast body of texts, from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Burma, and the Indian subcontinent, that have rarely been compiled or examined. Written in anxiety and distress, or recalled with poignancy and anger, these siege narratives depict a very different Briton. A far cry from the triumphant conqueror, explorer or ruler, these texts give us the vulnerable, injured and frightened Englishman and woman who seek, in the most adverse of conditions, to retain a measure of stoicism and identity. From Robert Knox’s 17th-century account of imprisonment in Sri Lanka, through J. Z. Holwell’s famous account of the ‘Black Hole’ of Calcutta, through Florentia Sale’s Afghan memoir, and Lady Inglis’s ‘Mutiny’ diary from Lucknow, the book opens up a dark and revealing corner of the colonial archive. Lucid and intriguing, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of modern South Asia, colonial history, literary and culture studies.

Thugs and Dacoits

Thugs and Dacoits PDF Author:
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9394701974
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
The volumes focus on select aspects of the British imperial archives: the accounts of “discovery” and exploration – fauna and flora, geography, climate – the people of the subcontinent, English domesticity and social life in the subcontinent, the wars and skirmishes – including the “Mutiny” of 1857-58 – and the “civilisational mission”. This volume documents how the practice of thuggee was viewed by the British before: as if it symbolized everything that was wrong with the social order in India. The texts collected here are accounts of how the British 'discovered' the subcontinent. The narrative of discovery, with the freshness of the 'new', was couched very often in the rhetoric of wonder. But this sense of wonder, even astonishment in some cases at the variety, magnitude and sheer difference of the land and its people, was tempered over time with a narrative of exploration.

Rebellions and Wars

Rebellions and Wars PDF Author: Pramod K. Nayar
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9354359108
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
India and the subcontinent stimulated the curiosity of the British who came to India as traders. Each aspect of life in India - its people, customs, geography, climate, fauna and flora - was documented by British travelers, traders, administrators, soldiers to make sense to the European mind. As they 'discovered' India and occupied it, they also attempted to 'civilise' the natives. The present volumes focus on select aspects of the imperial archives: the accounts of “discovery” and exploration – fauna and flora, geography, climate – the people of the subcontinent, English domesticity and social life in the subcontinent, the wars and skirmishes – including the “Mutiny” of 1857-58 – and the “civilisational mission”. Volume 4 Rebellions and Wars is a collection of accounts of a very different British life in India: as prisoners, under siege and in conditions of war. The British ascendancy in India did not proceed smoothly, and colonisation was always a militarised zone of interest, action and process.

Domesticity, the Social Scene and Leisure

Domesticity, the Social Scene and Leisure PDF Author: Pramod K. Nayar
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9354358705
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
India and the subcontinent stimulated the curiosity of the British who came to India as traders. Each aspect of life in India - its people, customs, geography, climate, fauna and flora - was documented by British travelers, traders, administrators, soldiers to make sense to the European mind. As they 'discovered' India and occupied it, they also attempted to 'civilise' the natives. The present volumes focus on select aspects of the imperial archives: the accounts of “discovery” and exploration – fauna and flora, geography, climate – the people of the subcontinent, English domesticity and social life in the subcontinent, the wars and skirmishes – including the “Mutiny” of 1857-58 – and the “civilisational mission”. Volume 3 Domesticity, the Social Scene and Leisure shifts the focus to the English home and social life. Domesticity, often a fraught exercise for the 'memsahib', carried on with the assistance of a retinue of Indian servants, meant tackling corruption, inefficiency and the all-pervasive social hierarchy of the colonised. Advice books were produced to aid the memsahib for this purpose. The Steel-Gardiner guide to housekeeping, which was a bestseller in its day and is excerpted here, was indispensable in the length and breadth of its coverage, from the care of children to the right wages for the servants. Diver's text, likewise, also demonstrates how running the home was difficult and has a resonance with the (male) dominion of running the Empire. These texts exhorted the English woman to practice thrift, control and managerial skills, to be aware of the natives' penchant for dirt and indolence and the caste-community dynamics that inform the servant-class.

The ‘Civilisational Mission’

The ‘Civilisational Mission’ PDF Author: Pramod K. Nayar
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 935435839X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
India and the subcontinent stimulated the curiosity of the British who came to India as traders. Each aspect of life in India - its people, customs, geography, climate, fauna and flora - was documented by British travelers, traders, administrators, soldiers to make sense to the European mind. As they 'discovered' India and occupied it, they also attempted to 'civilise' the natives. The present volumes focus on select aspects of the imperial archives: the accounts of “discovery” and exploration – fauna and flora, geography, climate – the people of the subcontinent, English domesticity and social life in the subcontinent, the wars and skirmishes – including the “Mutiny” of 1857-58 – and the “civilisational mission”. Volume 5 The 'Civilisational Mission' documents England's social reform and other efforts at 'improving' the colonised. The British, like other Europeans in Africa and Asian colonies, explained, defended and promoted their presence and action by presenting themselves in the role of the civilisers.

‘Discoveries’, Explorations and the Imperial Survey

‘Discoveries’, Explorations and the Imperial Survey PDF Author: Pramod K. Nayar
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9354356508
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description
India and the subcontinent stimulated the curiosity of the British who came to India as traders. Each aspect of life in India - its people, customs, geography, climate, fauna and flora - was documented by British travelers, traders, administrators, soldiers to make sense to the European mind. As they 'discovered' India and occupied it, they also attempted to 'civilise' the natives. The present volumes focus on select aspects of the imperial archives: the accounts of “discovery” and exploration – fauna and flora, geography, climate – the people of the subcontinent, English domesticity and social life in the subcontinent, the wars and skirmishes – including the “Mutiny” of 1857-58 – and the “civilisational mission”. Volume 1 'Discoveries', Explorations and the Imperial Survey consists of documents that deal with England's discovery of India, its exploration and mapping of the subcontinent. The texts collected here are accounts of how the British 'discovered' the subcontinent. The narrative of discovery, with the freshness of the 'new', was couched very often in the rhetoric of wonder. But this sense of wonder, even astonishment in some cases at the variety, magnitude and sheer difference of the land and its people, was tempered over time with a narrative of exploration. If the 'discovery' moment had a surprise, awe and a sense of uncertainty at facing something totally new-which, in many ways, the subcontinent was-in the early writings of the seventeenth century, the tone, emphasis and attitude shifts later on.

The Raj

The Raj PDF Author: Pramod K. Nayar
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9354355633
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
This is a cultural history of the British Empire in India presented through ten key non-literary texts. Each of these texts embodies a particular attitude, ideology and/or development in imperial thinking, administrative process or cultural practices, and it is this attitude, ideology and development that the book unpacks through a reading of the texts, along with excerpts from the original documents. The aim is to flag and signpost momentous events and ideas through imperial texts such as J.Z. Holwell's 1756 account of the Black Hole of Calcutta, T.B. Macaulay's 1835 'Minute' on Indian education and Flora Annie Steel and Grace Gardiner's 1888 advice book on colonial domesticity, The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook. Through this book, it is hoped, the reader will get a flavour and glimpse of the complex and complicated structure that was the Raj. The book will appeal not only to the academic audience and literary scholars keen on the rhetoric of empire but also to the general, informed readers.

Ireland’s Imperial Connections, 1775–1947

Ireland’s Imperial Connections, 1775–1947 PDF Author: Daniel Sanjiv Roberts
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030259846
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
This edited collection explores the complexities of Irish involvement in empire. Despite complaining regularly of treatment as a colony by England, Ireland nevertheless played a significant part in Britain’s imperialism, from its formative period in the late eighteenth century through to the decolonizing years of the early twentieth century. Framed by two key events of world history, the American Revolution and Indian Independence, this book examines Irish involvement in empire in several interlinked sections: through issues of migration and inhabitation; through literary and historical representations of empire; through Irish support for imperialism and involvement with resistance movements abroad; and through Irish participation in the extensive and intricate networks of empire. Informed by recent historiographical and theoretical perspectives, and including several detailed archival investigations, this volume offers an interdisciplinary and evolving view of a burgeoning field of research and will be of interest to scholars of Irish studies, imperial and postcolonial studies, history and literature.

Indian People and Society

Indian People and Society PDF Author: Pramod K. Nayar
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9354356664
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
India and the subcontinent stimulated the curiosity of the British who came to India as traders. Each aspect of life in India - its people, customs, geography, climate, fauna and flora - was documented by British travelers, traders, administrators, soldiers to make sense to the European mind. As they 'discovered' India and occupied it, they also attempted to 'civilise' the natives. The present volumes focus on select aspects of the imperial archives: the accounts of “discovery” and exploration – fauna and flora, geography, climate – the people of the subcontinent, English domesticity and social life in the subcontinent, the wars and skirmishes – including the “Mutiny” of 1857-58 – and the “civilisational mission”. Volume 2 Indian People and Society includes English studies of Indian languages, people and communities, and the social order. The landscape provided, understandably, endless prospects of the survey and the map. But the British were also keen on documenting the people. In the studies generated for 400 years, the British documented castes, religions, education, economies, professions, cultural practices, states of health and sickness, and other domains. With projects like the Census and the People of India, the land's inhabitants were classified and, eventually, also typecast and contributed to the colonial discourse about the native/colonised.

The Test of Our Times

The Test of Our Times PDF Author: Tom Ridge
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429928670
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
In the harrowing days after September 11, 2001, the President of the United States reached out to one man to help guide the nation in its quest to shore up domestic security. In this candid and compelling memoir, Tom Ridge describes the whirlwind series of events that took him from the state capital of Pennsylvania, into the fray of Washington, D.C., and onto the world stage as a new leader in the fight against international terrorism. A Washington outsider, Ridge went above and beyond in his new post, identifying the need to integrate response teams on a wide-reaching scale and leading the nation's ambitious initiative of establishing a new Cabinet department, the Department of Homeland Security. The author recounts how the new department's unsung heroes, brought together under great duress, succeeded against difficult odds and navigated the politics of terrorism. Perhaps most importantly, Ridge offers a prescriptive look to the future with provocative ideas such as a national ID card and the use of biometrics to track not just who enters the United States but also how long they are here. Tom Ridge simply tells it like it is, offering a refreshingly honest assessment of the state of homeland security today—and what it needs to be tomorrow.