You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Although the princes of India have been caricatured as oriental despots and British stooges, Barbara Ramusack's study argues that the British did not create the princes. On the contrary, many were consummate politicians who exercised considerable degrees of autonomy until the disintegration of the princely states after independence. Ramusack's synthesis has a broad temporal span, tracing the evolution of the Indian kings from their pre-colonial origins to their roles as clients in the British colonial system. The book breaks ground in its integration of political and economic developments in the major princely states with the shifting relationships between the princes and the British. It represents a major contribution, both to British imperial history in its analysis of the theory and practice of indirect rule, and to modern South Asian history, as a portrait of the princes as politicians and patrons of the arts.
Barbara N. Ramusack writes on South and Southeast Asia, surveying both the prescriptive roles and the lived experiences of women, as well as the construction of gender from early states to the 1990s. Although both regions are home to Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim religious traditions and had extended trade relations, they reveal striking differences in the status and roles of women and the processes of cultural adaptation. Sharon Sievers presents an verview of women's participation in the histories of China, Japan, and Korea from prehistory to the modern period that provides a framework for incorporating women into world history classrooms. It offers analyses on major issues derived from recent research and discusses such stereotypical cultural practices as footbinding (long seen as "exotic" in the West) in the context of women's lives. Book jacket.
A portrait of the princes of India from their pre-colonial origins to post-World War II. Barbara Ramusack's study reveals them to have been consummate political animals who were classified as stooges of the Raj but who in reality wielded considerable autonomy before independence in 1947.
Barbara Ramusack describes the pre-colonial origins of the Indian princes, frequently portrayed as synonymous with oriental luxury, and how they adapted their public activities and personal lifestyles to survive as political leaders and cultural icons. Their collaboration enabled the British to govern India with relatively limited manpower from the late 1790s to 1947. The book is intended for students of colonial history and visitors to the princely states.
The book aims to illustrate that what is distinctive about any particular society is not the fact of its modernity, but rather its own unique debates about modernity. Behind the embattled arena of culture in India, for example, lie particular social and political interests such as the growing middle class, the entrepreneurs and commercial institutions, and the state. The contributors address the roles of these various intertwined interests in the making of India's public culture, each examining different sites of consumption. The sites which are explored include cinema, radio, cricket, restaurants and tourism. The book also makes distinct the differences among public, mass and popular culture.
In this study of British middle-class feminism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Antoinette Burton explores an important but neglected historical dimension of the relationship between feminism and imperialism. Demonstrating how feminists in the United Kingdom appropriated imperialistic ideology and rhetoric to justify their own right to equality, she reveals a variety of feminisms grounded in notions of moral and racial superiority. According to Burton, Victorian and Edwardian feminists such as Josephine Butler, Millicent Garrett Fawcett, and Mary Carpenter believed that the native women of colonial India constituted a special 'white woman's burden.' Although there were a...
A fascinating study of the role played by the Indian princes in the devolution of British colonial power.
" Western Women and Imperialism] provides fascinating insights into interactions and attitudes between western and non-western women, mainly in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is an important contribution to the field of women's studies and (primarily British) imperial history, in that many of the essays explore problems of cross-cultural interaction that have been heretofore ignored." --Nancy Fix Anderson "A challenging anthology in which a multiplicity of authors sheds new light on the waves of missionaries, 'memsahibs, ' nurses--and feminists." --Ms. "... a long-overdue engagement with colonial discourse and feminism.... excellent essays..." --The Year's Work in Critical Cultural Theory
The American Historical Association's Committee on Women Historians commissioned some of the pioneering figures in women's history to prepare essays in their respective areas of expertise. This volume, the second in a series of three, collects their efforts. As a counterpoint to the broad themes discussed in the first volume, Volume 2 is concerned with issues that have shaped the history of women in particular places and during particular eras. It examines women in ancient civilizations; including women in China, Japan, and Korea; women and gender in South and South East Asia; Medieval women; women and gender in Colonial Latin America; and the history of women in the US to 1865. Authors included are Sarah Hughes and Brady Hughes, Susan Mann, Barbara N. Ramusack, Judith M. Bennett, Ann Twinam, and Kathleen Brown. Incorporating essays from top scholars ranging over an abundance of regions, dates, and methodologies, the three volumes of Women's History in Global Perspective constitute an invaluable resource for anyone interested in a comprehensive overview on the latest in feminist scholarship.