“No longer Merchants, but Sovereigns of a vast Empire”: the writings of Sir John Malcolm and British India, 1810 to 1833 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Straddling the Imperial Meridian: Warren Hastings as an Observer of Change in British India
History of European Ideas, 2023
The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are now seen as a moment when the “second” British Empire arose from the ruins of the “first” one. One witness to, and participant in, the convulsions of the age was Warren Hastings (1732-1818), the first governor-general of Bengal. Hastings’ career in India, his trial in parliament, and his imperial afterlife all have received fulsome attention. Yet his retirement years have been overlooked, owing to the misperception that they were uneventful. This article introduces and presents a series of letters written by Hastings, late in life, to Governor-General Lord Moira. These letters, published here for the first time, show that Hastings remained an astute observer of British Indian politics. They provide a rich account of the ways in which Britain’s Indian empire evolved in the decades around 1800. Moreover, they reveal that one of that empire’s founders expressed a profoundly critical view of its progress.
Review of: India in the Eyes of the British: Three Views, by Balkrishna Govind Gokhale
1994
This explores the changing inner world of the English in India, by examining images of India in the fiction of three English authors. The three are Rudyard Kipling, E. M. Forster, and Paul Scott. Citing Allen J. Greenberger, The British Image of India (London: Oxford University Press, 1960), Gokhale identifies these authors, respectively, with the Age of Confidence (1860s to 1918), the Era of Anxiety (1919- 1935) and the Years of Sunset (1936-1947) (pp. 31-32) . By an inner world he means to emphasize emotions and perceptions colored by emotions, rather than facts. For images he prefers to rely on realistic descriptions of landscapes and characters. This is a strategy that must be altered for Forster. Throughout, Gokhale provides historical backgrounds for the works of fiction he analyzes, but thinking of history as a known \u27\u27back ground for literature makes it difficult for him to discover anything new about history from literature
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is CONTENTS PREFACE The Oxford speech -Indian reactions -criticisms taken into account -history is neither for excuses nor for revenge 1. THE LOOTING OF INDIA * As I was typing this last sentence, somewhat hastily, my computer's spellcheck offered 'Brutish' as an acceptable substitute for 'British' rule in India!