Studies of the late eighteenth-century British empire in India have long used the figure of the nawab to personify political debates collectively known as ""the India question."" These nawabs, employees of the East India Company, were (and continue to be) represented as rapacious villains. This article will revisit the history of nabobs to offer a cultural history of British imperialism in late eighteenth-century India. It will argue that nabobs were representative figures in the political debates sur-rounding imperialism in South Asia because they were hybrid figures who made Britain's empire more real to domestic British observers. It will argue that the Nawabs' hybrid identity hinged on the collection of material artifacts they brought back to Britain from India. Nabobs stood at the boundary between nation and empire, and they suggested the frontier was permeable. They exposed the degree to which the projects of building a nation and an empire were mutually constitutive.
No historical work can be impartial, as history is a question of the interpretation of facts. I have not therefore tried to conceal my Socialist bias, believing that an avowedly socialist interpretation of the history of the British in India will be of use to the reader as an antidote to the orthodox histories which appear from time to time.
Some of the material in the last three chapters has already been used in articles which I contributed to Current History, Plebs, and the Millgate, to which acknowledgements are made.
I have to thank Christine Millar, of the National Council of Labour Colleges, for preparing the index, and also my wife for the help she has given me throughout.
"
Vedas (1182)
Upanishads (493)
Puranas (624)
Ramayana (741)
Mahabharata (354)
Dharmasastras (165)
Goddess (496)
Bhakti (242)
Saints (1503)
Gods (1290)
Shiva (370)
Journal (187)
Fiction (60)
Vedanta (362)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist