The Domination of Strangers

'This elegantly written and thought-provoking book opens up new perspectives on changes in colonial governance in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Eastern India. Innovatively applying a reading of Georg Simmel's essay on 'The Stranger' to the colonial context in India, it characterises these changes in terms of ambivalent and contradictory responses to a practical and semantic crisis in the East India Company's relations with Eastern Indian society. This important book also sheds new light on other areas of debate (such as the Anglicist-Orientalist controversy) by relocating these in the context of this crisis of governance. In addition, it brings its conclusions to bear on a wider comparative framework that discusses the differences and similarities between non-colonial regimes in continental Europe and Britain, and the colonial regime in India. As such, its breadth of perspective combined with focussed archival readings will appeal to historians of both modern South Asia and Britain, and to those who are interested in the issue of modern governance as a whole.'

- Javed Majeed, Queen Mary, University of London, UK