Synopses & Reviews
This book examines forms of cosmopolitanism in the high period of South Asian anti-colonialism, 1890-1947. Essays argue that anti-colonial action stemmed not only from a teleological rush to realize the form of nation-states, but from the speculative aspiration to critique and transcend notions of universalism and the ultimate good brought by British rule.
About the Author
SUGATA BOSE is Gardiner Professor of History at Harvard University, USA and Director of the South Asia Initiative. He is the author of
A Hundred Horizons: the Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire (Harvard University Press, 2006.)
KRIS MANJAPRA is Assistant Professor of History at Tufts University, USA. He was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at UCLA, 2007-2008 after completing his doctoral work at Harvard. Manjapra recently published his first book, M.N. Roy: Marxism and Colonial Cosmopolitanism (Routledge India, 2009).
Table of Contents
Introduction--
K.ManjapraPART I: THEORY AND METHODS
Is Nationalism a Boon or a Curse?--A.Sen
Benjamin in Bengal: Cosmopolitanism and Historical Primacy--S.Tagore
Said and the History of Ideas--S.Kaviraj
PART II: DIFFERENT UNIVERSALISMS
Iqbal on Nietzsche: A Transcultural Dialogue--A.Jalal
Different Universalisms, Colorful Cosmopolitanisms: The Global Imagination of the Colonized--S.Bose
Gandhi's Printing Press: Indian Ocean Print Cultures and Cosmopolitanims--I.Hofmeyr
PART III: MODERNIST THOUGHT ZONES
A Local Cosmopolitan: 'Kesari' Balakrishna Pillai and the Invention of Europe for a Modern Kerala--D.Menon
The Communist Ecumene and Transcolonial Recognition--K.Manjapra
Rethinking (the absence of) Fascism in India, c. 1922-1945--B.Zachariah
PART IV: HISTORIES OF CONNECTION
A Coloured Cosmopolitanism: Cedric Dover's Reading of the Afro-Asian World--N.Slate
Creative India and the World: Bengali Internationalism and Italy in the Interwar Period--M.Prayer
On Orientalism and Iconoclasm: German Scholarship's Challenge to the Saidian Model--S.Marchand