Title: Colonialism and its forms of knowledge : the British in India /
Authors: Cohn, Bernard S., 1928-
Publisher: Princeton University Press,
Year: 1996
Subjects: India History; India Civilization British influences.; India Politics and government
Abstract: Bernard Cohn's interest in the construction of Empire as an intellectual and cultural phenomenon has set the agenda for the academic study of modern Indian culture for over two decades. His earlier publications have shown how dramatic British innovations in India, including revenue and legal systems, led to fundamental structural changes in Indian social relations. This collection of his writings in the last fifteen years discusses areas in which the colonial impact has generally been overlooked. The essays form a multifaceted exploration of the ways in which the British discovery, collection, and codification of information about Indian society contributed to colonial cultural hegemony and political control. -- Publisher description.
Contents: Foreword / by Nicholas B. Dirks -- Introduction -- The command of language and the language of command -- Law and the colonial state in India -- The transformation of objects into artifacts, antiquities, and art in nineteenth-century India -- Cloth, clothes, and colonialism: India in the nineteenth century.