Imperial Connections - India in the Indian Ocean Arena, 1860-1920

1. Auflage 2008
ISBN: 978-0-520-25805-1
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 4, 280 Seiten, Trade Paperback, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 226 mm, Gewicht: 408 g

Reihe: California World History Library

An innovative remapping of empire, Imperial Connections offers a broad-ranging view of the workings of the British Empire in the period when the India of the Raj stood at the center of a newly globalized system of trade, investment, and migration. Thomas R. Metcalf argues that India itself became a nexus of imperial power that made possible British conquest, control, and governance across a wide arc of territory stretching from Africa to eastern Asia. His book, offering a new perspective on how imperialism operates, emphasizes transcolonial interactions and webs of influence that advanced the interests of colonial India and Britain alike. Metcalf examines such topics as law codes and administrative forms as they were shaped by Indian precedents; the Indian Army's role in securing Malaya, Africa, and Mesopotamia for the empire; the employment of Indians, especially Sikhs, in colonial policing; and the transformation of East Africa into what was almost a province of India through the construction of the Uganda railway. He concludes with a look at the decline of this Indian Ocean system after 1920 and considers how far India's participation in it opened opportunities for Indians to be a colonizing as well as a colonized people.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Metcalf, Thomas R.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations
Preface

Introduction: Empire Recentered
1. Governing Colonial Peoples
2. Constructing Identities
3. Projecting Power: The Indian Army Overseas
4. Recruiting Sikhs for Colonial Police and Military
5. “Hard Hands and Sound Healthy Bodies”: Recruiting “Coolies”
for Natal
6. India in East Africa
Conclusion

List of Abbreviations
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Thomas R. Metcalf, Professor of History Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, is author of Forging the Raj, Ideologies of the Raj, An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture, and Britain’s Raj (UC Press), and, with Barbara Daly Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India.