false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174070985m/357986.jpg 357986 2 <p> During the Raj, one group stands out as having prospered and thrived because of British rule: the Parsis. Driven out of Persia into India a thousand years ago, the Zoroastrian people adopted the manners, dress, and aspirations of their British colonizers, and their Anglophilic activities ranged from cricket to Oxford to tea. The British were fulsome in their praise of the Parsis and rewarded them with high-level financial, mercantile, and bureaucratic posts. The Parsis dominated Bombay for more than a century. But Indian independence ushered in their decline. Tanya Luhrmann vividly portrays a crisis of confidence, of self-criticism, and perpetual agonizing. </p><p> This story highlights the dilemmas and paradoxes of all who danced the colonial tango. Luhrmann's analysis brings startling insights into a whole range of communal and individual identity crises and what could be called "identity politics" of this century. In a candid last chapter the author confronts another elite in crisis: an anthropology in flux, uncertain of its own authority and its relation to the colonizers. </p> 348123 1996 The Good Parsi: The Fate of a Colonial Elite in a Postcolonial Society total:4|4:2|3:2| 4 14 8 1 0 0 false false Tue Aug 21 21:55:27 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 21 21:55:27 -0700 2007 4 0 false false Fri Apr 17 23:29:48 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 17 23:29:48 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Tue Dec 23 08:58:15 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 23 08:58:15 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Fri Aug 15 16:26:38 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 15 16:26:38 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Wed Jul 16 10:59:51 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 16 10:59:51 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Thu Jun 19 07:42:01 -0700 2008 Wed May 14 06:48:30 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 19 07:42:01 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Tue Jan 15 18:49:51 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 15 18:49:56 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Fri Mar 16 11:49:51 -0700 2007 Fri Mar 16 11:49:55 -0700 2007 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=357986