Crime and empire : the colony in nineteenth-century fictions of crime / Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee

By: Mukherjee, Upamanyu PabloContributor(s): Mukherjee, Upamanyu PabloMaterial type: TextTextPublisher number: :International Book Distributors | ;Flat No 17, Prakash Apartment 4405/2, 5 Ansari Road Darya Ganj New Delhi Publication details: Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2003Description: xii, 205 pages ; 22 cmISBN: 9780199261055Subject(s): English | Old English literatures | English fiction | India -- Foreign public opinion, British | Colonies in literature | Roman anglais -- 19e siècle -- Histoire et critique | Detective and mystery stories, English | Detective and mystery stories, English -- History and criticism | Literature | Public opinion, BritishDDC classification: 823.809 MUK
Contents:
Introduction -- The 'criminal' colony before the new police -- Demanding reform : from Fielding to Peel -- Resisting the new police -- New policing, India and thuggee -- Representing the Mutiny : 'criminal' India after 1857 -- Shifting images of the criminal.
Summary: This book focuses on one of the formative moments in the theoretical representation of empire. By looking at a variety of British narratives about India, from the later eighteenth century to the end of the 1860s, it shows how the discourse of crime was a major tool employed by the British to understand, imagine, and rule the vast country." "To see how this strategy contributed to both British understanding of the colonized 'others' and a particular image of 'self', we must study the formation of this discourse not only in the colonial context but within Britain itself. Nineteenth-century British society placed a huge emphasis on issues of crime, punishment, order, and policing. These issues became fundamental to British claims to being a civilized nation; naturally, they became an important part of British colonial/imperial strategy. But since at home these issues were sites of contest and not consent - of debate and opposition rather than unquestioned hegemonic power - they were inherently risky tools to use in building an ideology of empire."--Jacket
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Introduction --
The 'criminal' colony before the new police --
Demanding reform : from Fielding to Peel --
Resisting the new police --
New policing, India and thuggee --
Representing the Mutiny : 'criminal' India after 1857 --
Shifting images of the criminal.

This book focuses on one of the formative moments in the theoretical representation of empire. By looking at a variety of British narratives about India, from the later eighteenth century to the end of the 1860s, it shows how the discourse of crime was a major tool employed by the British to understand, imagine, and rule the vast country." "To see how this strategy contributed to both British understanding of the colonized 'others' and a particular image of 'self', we must study the formation of this discourse not only in the colonial context but within Britain itself. Nineteenth-century British society placed a huge emphasis on issues of crime, punishment, order, and policing. These issues became fundamental to British claims to being a civilized nation; naturally, they became an important part of British colonial/imperial strategy. But since at home these issues were sites of contest and not consent - of debate and opposition rather than unquestioned hegemonic power - they were inherently risky tools to use in building an ideology of empire."--Jacket

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