Nineteenth-Century Orientalism(s)

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the British asserted with excessive pride that they had the largest European empire in the world.  Although this rhetoric was not a new phenomenon, it took on a new air and importance in a period when, as A. G. Hopkins notes, “expansion was converted into imperialism (and

In Their Image

In the wake of their victory at Plassey in 1757 and their conquest of Bengal, and the gradual expansion of their rule over the rest of the country, the British sought to transform India in their image.  One way they did this was in the economic domain. Believing “that private property in land alone ensured