Dialogue and History

by Irschick, Eugene F.

• ISBN13: 9780520084056
• ISBN10: 0520084055
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-04-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr on Demand

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

List of Maps and Tables
Preface
Acknowledgments
Transliteration and Other Conventions
Introduction	p. 1
To Fix the People to Their Respective Villages	p. 14
Using the Past to Create the Future	p. 67
The Rise and Consolidation of the Chingleput Mirasidars	p. 115
From Slaves to the Original Dravidians	p. 153
Conclusion	p. 191
Abbreviations	p. 205
Notes	p. 207
Bibliography	p. 247
Index	p. 257
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