Ideology and Empire in Eighteenth-Century India: The British in BengalRobert Travers' analysis of British conquests in late eighteenth-century India shows how new ideas were formulated about the construction of empire. After the British East India Company conquered the vast province of Bengal, Britons confronted the apparent anomaly of a European trading company acting as an Indian ruler. Responding to a prolonged crisis of imperial legitimacy, British officials in Bengal tried to build their authority on the basis of an 'ancient constitution', supposedly discovered among the remnants of the declining Mughal Empire. In the search for an indigenous constitution, British political concepts were redeployed and redefined on the Indian frontier of empire, while stereotypes about 'oriental despotism' were challenged by the encounter with sophisticated Indian state forms. This highly original book uncovers a forgotten style of imperial state-building based on constitutional restoration, and in the process opens up new points of connection between British, imperial and South Asian history. |
Other editions - View all
Ideology and Empire in Eighteenth-Century India: The British in Bengal Robert Travers No preview available - 2007 |
Ideology and Empire in Eighteenth-Century India: The British in Bengal Robert Travers No preview available - 2007 |
Ideology and Empire in Eighteenth Century India: The British in Bengal Robert Travers No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
1st edn 2nd edn A. S. Skinner Alam Awadh Behader Beg Bengal Past Berkeley Bihar British Empire British India British Political Calcutta Cambridge History Chaudhuri Colonial India Commonwealth History Company in Eighteenth-Century Delhi Despotism Early Modern India East India Company Edmund Burke Eighteenth-Century Bengal Eighteenth-Century India Elijah Impey England English Historical Review European Fifth Report George Vansittart Papers Government Historians Historical Introduction History of Bengal History of India House of Commons Ideology Imperial and Commonwealth Imperial Britain Indian Society Islam Journal of Asian Journal of Imperial Junius Justice John Hyde Khan Land Revenue Late Eighteenth Century Lawson London M. R. Anderson Maratha Modern Asian Studies Mughal Empire Mughal India Nabobs Nadara Begum Nawabs Orientalism Oxford History P.J. Marshall Papers George Vansittart Past and Present Patna Philip Francis Princeton repr Rule in India Rural Bengal Settlement Sinha South Asia Speeches of Edmund vols Warren Hastings Woodbridge Writings and Speeches