Robert Travers' analysis of British conquests in late eighteenth-century India shows how new ideas were formulated about the construction of empire. After the British East India Company conquered the vast province of Bengal, Britons confronted the apparent anomaly of a European trading company acting as an Indian ruler. Responding to a prolonged crisis of imperial legitimacy, British officials in Bengal tried to build their authority on the basis of an 'ancient constitution', supposedly discovered among the remnants of the declining Mughal Empire. In the search for an indigenous constitution, British political concepts were redeployed and redefined on the Indian frontier of empire, while stereotypes about 'oriental despotism' were challenged by the encounter with sophisticated Indian state forms. This highly original book uncovers a forgotten style of imperial state-building based on constitutional restoration, and in the process opens up new points of connection between British, imperial and South Asian history.

A study of British politics and political thought in Bengal in the eighteenth century.

About the Author
Robert Travers is Assistant Professor in History at Cornell University. He has written articles in Modern Asian Studies, the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, and Past and Present.

Reviews
'...rich and important...' Journal of Modern Asian Studies



Book Information
ISBN 9780521861458
Author Robert Travers
Format Hardback
Page Count 294
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 600g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 21mm