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The British in India : a social history of the Raj / David Gilmour.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018Edition: First American editionDescription: xviii, 618 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780374116859
  • 0374116857
Subject(s):
Contents:
Introduction -- Part one. Aspirations. Numbers-- Motivations -- Origins and identities -- Imperial apprentices -- Voyages and other journeys -- Part two. Endeavours. Working lives : insiders -- Working lives : the open air -- The military life -- Part three. Experiences. Intimacies -- Domesticities -- Formalities -- Singularities -- At ease -- Last posts -- Envoi.
Summary: Explores the lives of the British in India from the seventeenth century to Independence, profiling the everyday realities of everyday British people, including missionaries, East India Company employees, and forestry officials.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 954.035 G488 Available 33111009285764
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

An immersive portrait of the lives of the British in India, from the seventeenth century to Independence

Who of the British went to India, and why? We know about Kipling and Forster, Orwell and Scott, but what of the youthful forestry official, the enterprising boxwallah, the fervid missionary? What motivated them to travel halfway around the globe, what lives did they lead when they got there, and what did they think about it all?

Full of spirited, illuminating anecdotes drawn from long-forgotten memoirs, correspondence, and government documents, The British in India weaves a rich tapestry of the everyday experiences of the Britons who found themselves in "the jewel in the crown" of the British Empire. David Gilmour captures the substance and texture of their work, home, and social lives, and illustrates how these transformed across the several centuries of British presence and rule in the subcontinent, from the East India Company's first trading station in 1615 to the twilight of the Raj and Partition and Independence in 1947. He takes us through remote hill stations, bustling coastal ports, opulent palaces, regimented cantonments, and dense jungles, revealing the country as seen through British eyes, and wittily reveling in all the particular concerns and contradictions that were a consequence of that limited perspective. The British in India is a breathtaking accomplishment, a vivid and balanced history written with brio, elegance, and erudition.

Published in Great Britain in 2018 by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, as: The British in India: Three Centuries of Ambition and Experience.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 531-578) and index.

Introduction -- Part one. Aspirations. Numbers-- Motivations -- Origins and identities -- Imperial apprentices -- Voyages and other journeys -- Part two. Endeavours. Working lives : insiders -- Working lives : the open air -- The military life -- Part three. Experiences. Intimacies -- Domesticities -- Formalities -- Singularities -- At ease -- Last posts -- Envoi.

Explores the lives of the British in India from the seventeenth century to Independence, profiling the everyday realities of everyday British people, including missionaries, East India Company employees, and forestry officials.

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