In these essays written over a decade, Peter Robb, an important historian of the Empire, identifies links between liberal rhetoric and modern technology and governance and connects them to the building of identities, including the nation. The volume investigates the role played by the British Empire in the creation of modern India.

Liberalism, Modernity, and the Nation: Empire, Identity, and India (Oxford Collected Essays)

History

Robb, Peter

Asia

Oxford University Press

In this collection written over a period of almost two decades, Peter Robb, an important historian of the Empire, explores the connections between agrarian policy, revenue, property law, and commercial production; and the emergence of political identities. He investigates issues like economic development, tenancy acts, peasant stratification, "capitalist" agriculture, and definitions of labor in relation to the British Empire.

Peasants, Political Economy, and Law: Empire, Identity, and India (Oxford Collected Essays)

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.

SEX AND SENSIBILITY: Richard Blechynden's Calcutta Diaries, 1791-1822

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.

Useful Friendship: Europeans and Indians in Early Calcutta

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 History of India (Bloomsbury Essential Histories, 49)

Red Globe Press

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 analyzes India's civilizations, empires and regions through the ages, and now also evaluates present-day developments and opportunities. This second edition of A History of India: * 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 reinventions 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. Centered 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 History of India (Bloomsbury Essential Histories, 36)

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
As vividly and unflinchingly presented herein with "blood and bone and sinew" (Times Literary Supplement) by Peter Robb, Caravaggio's wild and tempestuous life was a provocation to a culture in a state of siege. The end of the sixteenth century was marked by the Inquisition and Counter-Reformation, a background of ideological war against which, despite all odds, brilliant feats of art and science were achieved. No artist captured the dark, violent spirit of the time better than Caravaggio, variously known as Marisi, Moriggia, Merigi, and sometimes, simply M. As art critic Robert Hughes has said, "There was art before him and art after him, and they were not the same." Robb's masterful biography "re-creates the mirror Cravaggio held up to nature," as Hilary Spurling wrote in The New York Times Book Review, "with singular delicacy as well as passion and panache."

M : The Man Who Became Caravaggio

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Picador

Deliciously sensuous and fascinating, Robb renders in vivid detail the intoxicating pleasures of Brazil’s food, music, literature, and landscape as he travels not only cross country but also back in time—from the days of slavery to modern day political intrigue and murder. Spellbinding and revelatory, Peter Robb paints a multi-layered portrait of Brazil as a country of intoxicating and passionate extremes.

A Death in Brazil: A Book of Omissions

Americas

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.

Midnight in Sicily: On Art, Food, History, Travel and la Cosa Nostra

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

A History of India

A History of India explores the principal themes that unify Indian history and offers the reader a sophisticated and accessible view of India’s dynamics from ancient times, the Mughal Empire, and the British Raj through post-1947 India. The book examines Indian politics, religious beliefs, caste, environment, nationalism, colonialism, and gender, among other issues. It also discusses long-term economic development, the impact of global trade, and the origins of rural poverty. Peter Robb’s clear, fluent narrative explores the interplay between India’s empires, regions of rule, customs, and beliefs, and is an ideal starting point for those with an interest in India’s past and present.

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

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