Dialogue and History: Constructing South India, 1795-1895 (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780520084056)

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.

Author: Eugene F. Irschick
ISBN-10: 0520084055
ISBN-13: 9780520084056
Publisher: University of California Press
Language: English
Published: 04/05/1994
Pages: 280
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.02w x 0.83d