How did the modern state emerge in the non-European world? What was the relationship between colonialism and modern ideas about time? The Domination of Strangers offers the first account of British rule in India that connects the history of political thought to the anxious, everyday world of colonial governance. It argues that the process of colonial state-building in the province of Bengal occurred in response to uncertainties present within the practical encounter between Britons and Indians. New, characteristically modern forms of law and education emerged in India as the British sought stable forms of meaning in a world they found impossible to understand. The response of Indians to those anxieties played a central role in the formation of contemporary South Asian notions of society, culture and nationhood.
Connecting a theoretical perspective on colonial history with an impressive grasp of empirical detail, The Domination of Strangers shows how the colonial encounter generated concepts about the state and civil society with no precedent in Europe or South Asia. The British did not simply import European ideas. Rather, they developed a new approach to government in order to rule people they perceived as strangers. Fundamental to those ideas – and to modern politics throughout the subcontinent since – was a new, restless attitude towards time.
'This elegantly written and thought-provoking book opens up new perspectives on changes in colonial governance in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Eastern India. Innovatively applying a reading of Georg Simmel's essay on 'The Stranger' to the colonial context in India, it characterises these changes in terms of ambivalent and contradictory responses to a practical and semantic crisis in the East India Company's relations with Eastern Indian society. This important book also sheds new light on other areas of debate (such as the Anglicist-Orientalist controversy) by relocating these in the context of this crisis of governance. In addition, it brings its conclusions to bear on a wider comparative framework that discusses the differences and similarities between non-colonial regimes in continental Europe and Britain, and the colonial regime in India. As such, its breadth of perspective combined with focussed archival readings will appeal to historians of both modern South Asia and Britain, and to those who are interested in the issue of modern governance as a whole.'
- Javed Majeed, Queen Mary, University of London, UK
'Innovative and stimulating...The Domination of Strangers is a remarkably evocative book. Its methodological suggestiveness – both in its particular understanding of what marks a ‘modern’ state as well as its arguments that the history of political thought must attend not just to abstract philosophy or to its reception, but to the ideas produced out of political practice of those in the middle who did the governing - will make it quite stimulating reading both within colonial history and beyond it.' Philip Stern, Reviews in History
Maps and Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction
Comparing Eighteenth-Century Political Societies
Crisis, Anxiety and the Making of a New Order
Colonial Indecision and the Origins of the Hindu Joint Family
Governing the Power of Proprietors
The State as Machine and the Ambivalent Origins of Colonial Reform
Indian Liberalism and Colonial Utilitarianism
Reflections
Notes
Bibliography
JON E WILSON is Lecturer in History at King's College London. He has degrees in both history and anthropology. His research focuses on the history of modern South Asia, especially Bengal, its relationship to global social and intellectual forces and their contemporary political and philosophical implications.
Description
How did the modern state emerge in the non-European world? What was the relationship between colonialism and modern ideas about time? The Domination of Strangers offers the first account of British rule in India that connects the history of political thought to the anxious, everyday world of colonial governance. It argues that the process of colonial state-building in the province of Bengal occurred in response to uncertainties present within the practical encounter between Britons and Indians. New, characteristically modern forms of law and education emerged in India as the British sought stable forms of meaning in a world they found impossible to understand. The response of Indians to those anxieties played a central role in the formation of contemporary South Asian notions of society, culture and nationhood.
Connecting a theoretical perspective on colonial history with an impressive grasp of empirical detail, The Domination of Strangers shows how the colonial encounter generated concepts about the state and civil society with no precedent in Europe or South Asia. The British did not simply import European ideas. Rather, they developed a new approach to government in order to rule people they perceived as strangers. Fundamental to those ideas – and to modern politics throughout the subcontinent since – was a new, restless attitude towards time.
Reviews
'This elegantly written and thought-provoking book opens up new perspectives on changes in colonial governance in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Eastern India. Innovatively applying a reading of Georg Simmel's essay on 'The Stranger' to the colonial context in India, it characterises these changes in terms of ambivalent and contradictory responses to a practical and semantic crisis in the East India Company's relations with Eastern Indian society. This important book also sheds new light on other areas of debate (such as the Anglicist-Orientalist controversy) by relocating these in the context of this crisis of governance. In addition, it brings its conclusions to bear on a wider comparative framework that discusses the differences and similarities between non-colonial regimes in continental Europe and Britain, and the colonial regime in India. As such, its breadth of perspective combined with focussed archival readings will appeal to historians of both modern South Asia and Britain, and to those who are interested in the issue of modern governance as a whole.'
- Javed Majeed, Queen Mary, University of London, UK
'Innovative and stimulating...The Domination of Strangers is a remarkably evocative book. Its methodological suggestiveness – both in its particular understanding of what marks a ‘modern’ state as well as its arguments that the history of political thought must attend not just to abstract philosophy or to its reception, but to the ideas produced out of political practice of those in the middle who did the governing - will make it quite stimulating reading both within colonial history and beyond it.' Philip Stern, Reviews in History
Contents
Maps and Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction
Comparing Eighteenth-Century Political Societies
Crisis, Anxiety and the Making of a New Order
Colonial Indecision and the Origins of the Hindu Joint Family
Governing the Power of Proprietors
The State as Machine and the Ambivalent Origins of Colonial Reform
Indian Liberalism and Colonial Utilitarianism
Reflections
Notes
Bibliography
Authors
JON E WILSON is Lecturer in History at King's College London. He has degrees in both history and anthropology. His research focuses on the history of modern South Asia, especially Bengal, its relationship to global social and intellectual forces and their contemporary political and philosophical implications.
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