Books in the Anthem South Asian Studies series

The first ever book on Mumbai written in the Marathi language, this is a historically fascinating and revealing urban biography of nineteenth-century India.

The Materiality of Politics uses a series of historical illustrations to reveal the physicality and underlying materiality of political processes. The political subject of the study is the collective political actor poised against governmental rules for stabilizing order. Samaddars tour de force propels readers through an account of blood, violence, bodies, controls, laws and conflicts. Politics is examined not as an abstraction, but as a real field of dynamic factors rooted in everyday life. Volume 1, subtitled The Technologies of Rule discusses the techniques of modern rule which form the basis of the post-colonial Indian state. Beginning with the rule of law, the volume analyses the nature and manifestations of constitutional rule, the relation between law and terror and the construction of extraordinary sovereign power. The author also investigates the methods of care, protection, segregation and stabilization by which rule proceeds. In the processes, the material core of the cultural and the aesthetic is exposed.

This fascinating book, based on extensive archival research in Britain and India, examines why mutineer-rebels chose to attack prisons and release prisoners, discusses the impact of the destruction of the jails on British penal policy in mainland India, considers the relationship between India and its penal settlements in Southeast Asia, re-examines Britains decision to settle the Andaman Islands as a penal colony in 1858, and re-evaluates the experiences of mutineer-rebel convicts there. As such this book makes an important contribution to histories of the mutiny-rebellion, British colonial South Asia, British expansion in the Indian Ocean and incarceration and transportation. Coinciding with the 150th anniversary of the mutiny-rebellion, this book will be of interest to academics and students researching the history of colonial India, the history of empire and expansion and the history of imprisonment and incarceration.

The first ever book on Mumbai written in the Marathi language, this is a historically fascinating and revealing urban biography of nineteenth-century India.

'Colonial Childhoods' is about the politics of childhood in India between the 1860s and the 1930s. It examines not only the redefinition of the 'child' in the cultural and intellectual climate of colonialism, but also the uses of the child, the parent and the family in colonizing and nationalizing projects. It investigates also the complications of transporting metropolitan discourses of childhood, adulthood and expertise across the lines of race. Focused on reformatories and laws for juvenile delinquents, and boarding schools for aristocratic children, it illuminates a vital area of conflict and accommodation in a colonial society.

Through oral histories, interviews and fictional retellings, 'Bengal Partition Stories' unearths and articulates the collective memories of a people traumatised by the brutal division of their homeland.

A revised edition of the classic monograph, 'The Ascendancy of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh' investigates the social contradictions, class forces, and efforts at political organization and mobilization that lay behind the emergence of a powerful nationalist movement in Uttar Pradesh in the late 1920s and early 1930s. It also considers the concurrent emergence of HinduMuslim differences as a major factor affecting nationalist politics and the anti-colonial struggle in India.

A Marxist scholar and historian, Irfan Habib has been a towering presence in the Indian intellectual scene for over four decades. His formidable intellectual reputation, established in the sixties with the publication of The Agrarian System of Mughal India, broadened as he became an authority in the entire area of Indian history from ancient to modern. Professor Habib’s undiminished commitment to the cause of socialism is reflected in these highly original and bold analyses of Marxist historiography and theories of socialist construction. This volume comprises essays from scholars around the world representing the wide variety of Habib’s interests and contributions. Ranging from history to politics and economics, the essays cover both the medieval period and modern India, as well as theories for the future of this emerging superpower. This special edition also features an essay by Irfan Habib, originally published as The Economic History of Medieval India: A Survey, covering the Delhi Sultanate, the Vijayanagara economy and the economy of Mughal India.

A Marxist scholar and historian, Irfan Habib has been a towering presence in the Indian intellectual scene for over four decades. His formidable intellectual reputation, established in the sixties with the publication of The Agrarian System of Mughal India, broadened as he became an authority in the entire area of Indian history from ancient to modern. Professor Habib’s undiminished commitment to the cause of socialism is reflected in these highly original and bold analyses of Marxist historiography and theories of socialist construction. This volume comprises essays from scholars around the world representing the wide variety of Habib’s interests and contributions. Ranging from history to politics and economics, the essays cover both the medieval period and modern India, as well as theories for the future of this emerging superpower. This special edition also features an essay by Irfan Habib, originally published as The Economic History of Medieval India: A Survey, covering the Delhi Sultanate, the Vijayanagara economy and the economy of Mughal India.

A profound analysis of a broad range of issues, providing a masterly overview of rural development in India.

A far-reaching and extensive rethinking of India's political and economic structures at every level, engagingly presented by a team of eminent academics and practitioners.

Rural India Facing the 21st Century is a unique study of rural development in South India, concluded over a twenty-year period. Set against the context of international, national and state policies, the book focuses on a wide number of themes, including the stagnation of the ‘green revolution’, growing differentiation and inequality, the ecological crisis, resistance to reform, corruption and the enduring need for state intervention in rural development. Written by an international team of young scholars under the direction of Professor Harris-White, Rural India Facing the 21st Century draws together a profound analysis of a broad range of issues to provide a masterly overview of overall rural development. Its highly original methodology and findings will be of considerable interest for development policy.

Inherent in colonialism was the idea of self-legitimation, the most powerful tool of which was the colonizer''s claim to bring the fruits of progress and modernity to the subject people. In colonial logic, people who were different because they were inferior had to be made similar - and hence equal - by civilizing them. However, once this equality had been attained, the very basis for colonial rule would vanish. Colonialism as Civilizing Mission explores British colonial ideology at work in South Asia. Ranging from studies on sport and national education, to pulp fiction to infanticide, to psychiatric therapy and religion, these essays on the various forms, expressions and consequences of the British ‘civilizing mission’ in South Asia shed light on a topic that even today continues to be an important factor in South Asian politics.