000			01473nam a22002177a 4500
005			20260604162411.0
008			260604b |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9780520084056
028			_a: Donated by Prof. Romila Thapar
082			_a954.8 IRS
100			_aIrschick, Eugene F.
245			_aDialogue and history _b: constructing South India, 1795-1895. _c/ Eugene F. Irschick.
260			_aBerkeley _b: University of California Press, _c, 1994.
300			_axiii, 261p. _c: 24cm.
365			_b00
520			_aEugene 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.
650			_aHistory.
650			_aSouth India
700			_aEugene F. Irschick
942			_cRBK
999			_c68865 _d68865