Skip to content

Booksellers & Trade Customers: Sign up for online bulk buying at trade.atlanticbooks.com for wholesale discounts

Booksellers: Create Account on our B2B Portal for wholesale discounts

Anthropologist and Imperialist: H.H. Risley and British India, 1873-1911

by CJ Fuller
Save 28% Save 28%
Current price ₹1,144.00
Original price ₹1,595.00
Original price ₹1,595.00
Original price ₹1,595.00
(-28%)
₹1,144.00
Current price ₹1,144.00

Ships in 7-10 Days

Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 500

Request Bulk Quantity Quote
+91
Book cover type: Hardcover
  • ISBN13: 9789383166565
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • Subject: N/A
  • Publisher: Orient Blackswan Pvt Ltd
  • Publisher Imprint: Orient Blackswan Pvt Ltd
  • Publication Date:
  • Pages: 465
  • Original Price: INR 1595.0
  • Language: English
  • Edition: N/A
  • Item Weight: 3510 grams
  • BISAC Subject(s): N/A

Anthropologist and Imperialist: H. H. Risley and British India, 1873–1911 brings out how imperative the role of Sir Herbert Hope Risley was to India’s colonial past. A member of the Indian Civil Service (ICS) from 1873 to 1910, Risley served in Bengal and became a senior administrator and policymaker in the colonial government. He was also the pre-eminent anthropologist in British India. An imperialist, Risley was convinced about the rightness of ‘civilising’ British rule and its benefits for both India and Britain. One of this book’s objectives is to render his simultaneous commitment to anthropology and imperialism intelligible to present-day readers. More specifically, Anthropologist and Imperialist draws attention to the two sides of Risley’s career, which is used as a case-study to investigate, first, the production and circulation of colonial knowledge, specifically anthropological knowledge, and secondly, its often loose and inconsistent connection with administration and policymaking, and with the government and state overall.

Risley, like other officials engaged in anthropology in India, as well as the government itself, insisted that ethnography and anthropology had both ‘administrative’ and ‘scientific’ value; unlike previous works on Indian colonial anthropology, this book carefully examines its ‘scientific’ contributions in relation to contemporary metropolitan anthropology.

The book attempts to demonstrate the importance of studying the powerful officials who ruled British India, as well as the minor provincial politicians and subaltern subjects – or the abstract forces, such as colonialism and resistance – that have dominated recent historical scholarship. It does not seek to reinvent ‘great-man’ political or intellectual history. This book also shows that a detailed inquiry into Risley’s career, and his ideas and actions, can open up new perspectives on a variety of continuing debates, including those over the colonial construction of caste and race in ‘traditional’ India, orientalism and forms of colonial knowledge, Victorian anthropology’s close relationship with the British empire, and the modern discipline’s uneasy links with its colonial past.

C.J. Filler is emeritus professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics. He is the author of several books, including The Camphor Flame and The Renewal of the Priesthood.

Trusted for over 49 years

Family Owned Company

Secure Payment

All Major Credit Cards/Debit Cards/UPI & More Accepted

New & Authentic Products

India's Largest Distributor

Need Support?

Whatsapp Us