The Episteme of Empire

William Wilson Hunter and Colonial Bengal
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-1-009-77460-4
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 285 Seiten

This book is an attempt at highlighting the intellectual and cultural history of British imperial knowledge production in late-nineteenth-century India, examined through the life and writings of William Wilson Hunter (1840–1900). Tracing Hunter's role as an imperial bureaucrat, historian, and publicist, the book explores how his works sought to shape colonial governance through structured information systems and a rhetoric of 'improvement'; an intellectual enterprise that drew the interests of contemporary stalwarts across the continents, such as Rabindranath Tagore and Charles Darwin. It also examines how Bengali intellectuals, such as Rabindranath Tagore, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and others engaged with and contested Hunter's ideas, opening up new directions in nationalist thought and historiography. It strives to offer a new outlook on the mutual entanglements of empire and knowledge, and the political life of texts in colonial Bengal.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mukherjee, Pritam

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction; 1. Hunter's Rural Bengal; 2. The Politics of Imperial Knowledge: reading The Indian Musalmans in Context; 3. Grand Grids of Information: the making of A Statistical Account of Bengal; 4. The late-Nineteenth-Century Bengali Intelligentsia; 5. Bankimchandra's British Source: Anandamath and The Annals of Rural Bengal; Conclusion; Bibliography.

Über Autor(innen)

Mukherjee, Pritam
Pritam Mukherjee is Associate Professor of English at Abhedananda Mahavidyalaya, affiliated to the University of Burdwan. His research interests lie at the intersection of colonial Bengal, intellectual history, and imperial historiography, with a particular focus on the production and circulation of colonial knowledge. He has published in academic journals and volumes on colonial governance, vernacular responses to empire, and the cultural politics of nineteenth-century Bengal. He has also been involved in several important translation projects.