Peter Robb

The first systematic attempt to introduce a full range of Japanese scholarship on the agrarian history of British India to the English-language reader. Suggests the fundamental importance of an Asian comparative perspective for the understanding of Indian history.

The first systematic attempt to introduce a full range of Japanese scholarship on the agrarian history of British India to the English-language reader. Suggests the fundamental importance of an Asian comparative perspective for the understanding of Indian history.

This book explores the intersection of public and private temporal systems. Examining Calcutta between 1780-1830, it reveals how time functioned as both a regulatory mechanism of emerging colonial governance and a deeply personal construct that continued to reflect pre-colonial norms and practices. The author navigates the complex temporal landscape of early colonial Calcutta, where European clock-based standardization encountered and coexisted with indigenous temporal frameworks. The analysis illuminates how time manifested across diverse contexts—from distance perception and collective memory to religious festivals, scientific endeavours, financial transactions, and labour relations. It assesses extensions of law, imperfections of policy, and both European and Indian reactions. Drawing upon a rich tapestry of sources, including the collection of Richard Blechynden's diaries and papers, this study offers unprecedented insight into the daily temporal experiences of both Europeans and Indians in a period when (as is argued) they foreshadowed major changes to come. It will be a significant reading for scholars and researchers of colonialism, South Asian history, India-England relations, temporal studies and modern Indian history.

Were colonial rulers in India worse than other governments and if so why? To consider those questions, the first part of Benign Imperialism? examines confidential discussions within the Government of India concerning official misconduct, law, and public benefit, particularly in the Bengal Presidency in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Officials debated the purpose and methods of British rule, how to punish civil servants' misconduct, the relationship between executive and High Court, and the importance of public opinion in India (and Britain). The book also considers these issues by referring to court cases and some British Parliamentary Papers.Part two turns to policies and local administration, revealing shortcomings including poor focus and police corruption. It assesses the basis of government understandings and describes conditions of village life and the local experience of British rule. The last two chapters look at examples of policies reacting to need and intended to be beneficial, with the longest discussion being about rural irrigation.

This book looks at agriculture, development, poverty and British rule in India, especially in the Patna Division in Bihar between c.1870–1920. It traces the economic influence of British policies and maps the impact of legal, administrative and scientific interventions to rural conditions and norms in the state.The book discusses British theories and policies of ‘improvement’, comparing them with Bihar’s agricultural practice and socio-economic conditions to draw conclusions about rural impoverishment. Following on from his earlier book, Ancient Rights and Future Comfort on the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885, the author also presents case studies on famines, debts, canal and village irrigation, flood-protection and the cultivation and production of indigo, opium and sugar. He analyses extensive archival material to reflect on property law, scientific interventions, cropping patterns, trade and intermediaries. He examines the economic role of governments, Eurocentric development theories and the complex impact of development policy on agriculture and society in Bihar.The book will be of interest to academics and students of colonial history, modern Indian history, agrarian studies, economic history, sociology, and development studies. It will also be useful to development practitioners and researchers working on the history of agrarian conditions and public policy.

This book looks at agriculture, development, poverty and British rule in India, especially in the Patna Division in Bihar between c.1870–1920. It traces the economic influence of British policies and maps the impact of legal, administrative and scientific interventions to rural conditions and norms in the state.The book discusses British theories and policies of ‘improvement’, comparing them with Bihar’s agricultural practice and socio-economic conditions to draw conclusions about rural impoverishment. Following on from his earlier book, Ancient Rights and Future Comfort on the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885, the author also presents case studies on famines, debts, canal and village irrigation, flood-protection and the cultivation and production of indigo, opium and sugar. He analyses extensive archival material to reflect on property law, scientific interventions, cropping patterns, trade and intermediaries. He examines the economic role of governments, Eurocentric development theories and the complex impact of development policy on agriculture and society in Bihar.The book will be of interest to academics and students of colonial history, modern Indian history, agrarian studies, economic history, sociology, and development studies. It will also be useful to development practitioners and researchers working on the history of agrarian conditions and public policy.

This volume argues that concepts and ideologies shaped the practice of British rule in India; impacted policies and laws, and were embodied in institutions and practices, affecting both governance and Indian experience. Engaging with questions of historiography, it calls for a balanced assessment of India's growth or decline under British rule. Ideas Matter examines revenue policies and their consequences, generally but particularly in Bihar, stressing continuities from pre-colonial times but also discussing major changes deriving from British laws. Two chapters analyse the rationale and impact of the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885. Others discuss communal identities and the effects of colonial categorization, probing the significance of interpretations of the 1857 revolt and the Amritsar massacre of 1919, and considering the overtly non-communalist Abdul Latif (1828-93) and educational reforms intended to benefit Bengali Muslims.

This book analyses the character of British rule in nineteenth-century India, by focusing on the underlying ideas and the practical repercussions of agrarian policy. It argues that the great rent law debate and the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885 helped constitute a revolution in the effective aims of government and in the colonial ability to interfere in India, but that they did so alongside a continuing weakness of understanding and in effective local control. In particular, the book considers the importance of notions of historical rights and economic progress to the false categorisations made of agrarian structure. It shows that the Tenancy Act helped to widen social disparities in rural Bihar, and to create political interests on the land.

Peter Robb's journey into the dark heart of Sicily uses history, painting, literature and food to shed light on southern Italy's legacy of political corruption and violent crime.

This book describes how friendship or quasi-friendly behaviour underwrote British life and work in Calcutta before and after 1800, even between patrons and clients, and when personal relations were not amicable. Amid the uncertainties as a new town was created, the parameters of proper behaviour were defined by sociability, trust, and reputation. The book explains friendship's role in credit and debt; in town-development, securing contracts, and managing work; and in early colonial law and administration. It suggests that personal experiences and mores aided the acceptance of formal regulation, and the convenient invention of a 'virtuous' public identity for the imperial British. The book seeks to explain, secondly, why Indians were not fully integrated into the Europeans' notions and rituals of friendship, though many Europeans and Indians lived and worked very closely together. Without backing easy notions about racism or power, it illustrates mutual failures of inclusion and understanding in European-Indian relations. The book is the last of three studies based on the huge diary of Richard Blechynden, architect and surveyor. Though somewhat more broadly based than its predecessors, it still analyses rich evidence from the diary, showing how it adds to our understanding of intellectual, social, and political trends. The detailed stories provide an important pre-history of imperial rule and its justifications, and of racial distinctions and division.

Naples is always a shock, flaunting beauty and squalor like nowhere else. It is the only city in Europe whose ancient past still lives in its irrepressible people. In 1503, Naples was the Mediterranean capital of Spain's world empire and the base for the Christian struggle with Islam. It was a European metropolis matched only by Paris and Istanbul, an extraordinary concentration of military power, lavish consumption, poverty and desperation. It was to Naples in 1606 that Michelangelo Merisi fled after a fatal street fight, and there released a great age in European art - until everything erupted in a revolt by the dispossessed, and the people of an occupied city brought Europe into the modern world.Ranging across nearly three thousand years of Neapolitan life and art, from the first Greek landings in Italy to the author's own, less auspicious, arrival thirty-something years ago, Street Fight in Naples brings vividly to life the tumultuous and, at times, tragic history of Naples.

Richard Blechynden was a surveyor, architect, and builder in early colonial Bengal. This volume and its companion (Sentiment and Self) use 80 volumes of his diaries and other archival material along with anecdotes, extracts, and stories to recreate histories of everyday life. While Sentiment and Self explores issues like interactions between Europeans and Indians, race and tolerance, this volume focuses on the position of women, especially concubines, or bibis and their sexual and emotional relationships; the social milieu of the early empire; dynamics of household; contexts for cross-cultural contact and misunderstanding; the complexities of class, culture, and race; and the overlapping public and private life. It examines the domestic life, personal sensibilities, and private and public persona of the main diarist, Richard Blechynden. This book will interest scholars and students of modern Indian history, gender studies, cultural studies, and British Imperialism, as well as those interested in biographies.

The controversial, ground-breaking biography of Caravaggio'A great read; it grabs, it kicks, it lives ... Feel the force of Caravaggio's cutting edge' Guardian‘Written in a vehemently passionate and colloquial style ... it is full of energy' TelegraphM is the name of an enigma. In his short and violent life, Michaelangelo Merisi, from Caravaggio, changed art for ever. In the process he laid bare his own sexual longing and the brutal realities of his life with shocking frankness.Like no painter before him and few since, M the man appears in his art. As a book about art and life and how they connect, there has never been anything quite like it.

This fresh and up-to-date interpretation of India's rich and extraordinary history, written by a leading authority in the field, explores themes in ancient, medieval and especially modern India. Peter Robb's accessible study analyses India's civilizations, empires and regions through the ages, and now also evaluates present-day developments and opportunities.A History of India, Second Edition• examines the relationships between politics, religious belief, social order, environment and economic change• assesses, from c. 1860, British colonialism, Indian nationalism and nation-building, popular protest movements, religious revivals, and re-inventions of caste, community and gender• discusses long-term economic development, the impact of global trade, and the origins of rural poverty• has been revised in the light of the latest scholarship, and now features a Chronology as well as a fully reworked final chapter which brings the story up to the present day and carefully considers India's prospects and new roles in the world.Centred around clearly expressed and well argued topics, issues and explanations, A History of India remains the ideal introduction for all those who wish to understand the drama and vitality of India's past, its present situation and its future challenges.

This fresh and up-to-date interpretation of India's rich and extraordinary history, written by a leading authority in the field, explores themes in ancient, medieval and especially modern India. Peter Robb's accessible study analyses India's civilizations, empires and regions through the ages, and now also evaluates present-day developments and opportunities.A History of India, Second Edition• examines the relationships between politics, religious belief, social order, environment and economic change• assesses, from c. 1860, British colonialism, Indian nationalism and nation-building, popular protest movements, religious revivals, and re-inventions of caste, community and gender• discusses long-term economic development, the impact of global trade, and the origins of rural poverty• has been revised in the light of the latest scholarship, and now features a Chronology as well as a fully reworked final chapter which brings the story up to the present day and carefully considers India's prospects and new roles in the world.Centred around clearly expressed and well argued topics, issues and explanations, A History of India remains the ideal introduction for all those who wish to understand the drama and vitality of India's past, its present situation and its future challenges.

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year From the author of M and A Death in Brazil comes Midnight in Sicily. South of mainland Italy lies the island of Sicily, home to an ancient culture that--with its stark landscapes, glorious coastlines, and extraordinary treasure troves of art and archeology--has seduced travelers for centuries. But at the heart of the island's rare beauty is a network of violence and corruption that reaches into every corner of Sicilian life: Cosa Nostra, the Mafia. Peter Robb lived in southern Italy for over fourteen years and recounts its sensuous pleasures, its literature, politics, art, and crimes.

Delving into Brazil's baroque past, Peter Robb writes about its history of slavery and the richly multicultural but disturbed society that was left in its wake when the practice was abolished in the late nineteenth century. Even today, Brazil is a nation of almost unimaginable distance between its wealthy and its poor, a place of extraordinary levels of crime and violence. It is also one of the most beautiful and seductive places on earth. Using the art, food and the books of its great nineteenth-century writer, Machado de Assis, Robb takes us on a journey into a world like Conrad's "Nostromo". A world so absurdly dramatic, like the current president Lula's fight for power, that it could have come from one of the country's immensely popular TV soap operas, a world where resolution is often only provided by death. Like all the best travel writing, "A Death in Brazil" immerses you deep into the heart of a fascinating country.

M is the name of an enigma. In his short and violent life, Michaelangelo Merisi, from Caravaggio, changed art for ever. In the process, he laid bare his own sexual longing and the brutal realities of his life with shocking frankness. Like no painter before him and few since, M the man appears in his art. As a book about art and life and how they connect, there has never been anything quite like it. "A great read; it grabs, it kicks, it lives. Feel the force of Caravaggio's cutting edge" - "Guardian". "Written in a vehemently passionate and colloquial style, M is an abrasive, flawed, idiosyncratic book, but it is full of energy. Peter Robb's Caravaggio may not be entirely believable, but he is thoroughly alive, a being as full of mystery and contradictions as the painter once seemed to his contemporaries" - "Daily Telegraph".

This book analyses the character of British rule in nineteenth-century India, by focusing on the underlying ideas and the practical repercussions of agrarian policy. It argues that the great rent law debate and the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885 helped constitute a revolution in the effective aims of government and in the colonial ability to interfere in India, but that they did so alongside a continuing weakness of understanding and in effective local control. In particular, the book considers the importance of notions of historical rights and economic progress to the false categorisations made of agrarian structure. It shows that the Tenancy Act helped to widen social disparities in rural Bihar, and to create political interests on the land.

For most of us Christmas is the season of huge helpings of good food, good drink, and with luck, good cheer, as the rituals of cracker-pulling, present-giving and happy or sulphurous family reunions fizzle and bang through the long afternoon.