Thomas R. Metcalf

A Concise History of Modern India by Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf, has become a classic in the field since it was first published in 2001. As a fresh interpretation of Indian history from the Mughals to the present, it has informed students across the world. In the third edition of the book, a final chapter charts the dramatic developments of the last twenty years, from 1990 through the Congress electoral victory of 2009, to the rise of the Indian high-tech industry in a country still troubled by poverty and political unrest. The narrative focuses on the fundamentally political theme of the imaginative and institutional structures that have successively sustained and transformed India, first under British colonial rule and then, after 1947, as an independent country. Woven into the larger political narrative is an account of India's social and economic development and its rich cultural life.

A Concise History of Modern India by Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf, has become a classic in the field since it was first published in 2001. As a fresh interpretation of Indian history from the Mughals to the present, it has informed students across the world. In the third edition of the book, a final chapter charts the dramatic developments of the last twenty years, from 1990 through the Congress electoral victory of 2009, to the rise of the Indian high-tech industry in a country still troubled by poverty and political unrest. The narrative focuses on the fundamentally political theme of the imaginative and institutional structures that have successively sustained and transformed India, first under British colonial rule and then, after 1947, as an independent country. Woven into the larger political narrative is an account of India's social and economic development and its rich cultural life.

The Mutiny of 1857 left a deep mark on Indian society and on the nature of British rule. Thomas Metcalf analyzes the influence of the Mutiny on many facets of Indian life and relations with Great Britain, examining social reform, education, land settlement policy, the position of the tenant and the moneylender, relations with the Indian states, the structure of the government, and the growth of racial sentiment. The author also makes an attempt to place the India of the 1860's in the broader context of Victorian liberalism. The view emerges that the relations between the British and the Indian people were decisively altered by the Mutiny. In fact the decade following the upheaval was possibly the last great creative period of British rule, and one in which the nature of many of the institutions that lasted to independence were shaped. Originally published in 1964. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Mutiny of 1857 left a deep mark on Indian society and on the nature of British rule. Thomas Metcalf analyzes the influence of the Mutiny on many facets of Indian life and relations with Great Britain, examining social reform, education, land settlement policy, the position of the tenant and the moneylender, relations with the Indian states, the structure of the government, and the growth of racial sentiment. The author also makes an attempt to place the India of the 1860's in the broader context of Victorian liberalism. The view emerges that the relations between the British and the Indian people were decisively altered by the Mutiny. In fact the decade following the upheaval was possibly the last great creative period of British rule, and one in which the nature of many of the institutions that lasted to independence were shaped. Originally published in 1964. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

An innovative remapping of empire, "Imperial Connections" offers a broad-ranging view of the workings of the British Empire in the period when the India of the Raj stood at the center of a newly globalized system of trade, investment, and migration. Thomas R. Metcalf argues that India itself became a nexus of imperial power that made possible British conquest, control, and governance across a wide arc of territory stretching from Africa to eastern Asia. His book, offering a new perspective on how imperialism operates, emphasizes transcolonial interactions and webs of influence that advanced the interests of colonial India and Britain alike.Metcalf examines such topics as law codes and administrative forms as they were shaped by Indian precedents; the Indian Army's role in securing Malaya, Africa, and Mesopotamia for the empire; the employment of Indians, especially Sikhs, in colonial policing; and the transformation of East Africa into what was almost a province of India through the construction of the Uganda railway. He concludes with a look at the decline of this Indian Ocean system after 1920 and considers how far India's participation in it opened opportunities for Indians to be a colonizing, as well as a colonized people.

Ideologies of the Raj examines how the British sought to justify their rule over India. The author argues that two divergent strategies were devised to legitimate their authority: the one defined characteristics which the Indians shared with the British themselves, while the other emphasised qualities of enduring ‘difference’. In the end, however, the differences predominated in the colonial view of India. Since the British constructed few explicit ideologies of empire, the author explores the workings of the Raj through the study of its underlying assumptions as revealed in policies and writings. Students of modern India and the British Empire will find Thomas Metcalf’s book relevant and accessible.