At the Heart of the Empire: Indians and the Colonial Encounter in Late-Victorian Britain

by Antoinette Burton

Antoinette Burton focuses on the experiences of three Victorian travelers in Britain to illustrate how "Englishness" was made and remade in relation to imperialism. The accounts left by these three sojourners--all prominent, educated Indians--represent complex, critical ethnographies of "native" metropolitan society and offer revealing glimpses of what it was like to be a colonial subject in fin-de-siecle Britain. Burton's innovative interpretation of the travelers' testimonies shatters the myth of Britain's insularity from its own construction of empire and shows that it was instead a terrain open to continual contest and refiguration.Burton's three subjects felt the influence of imperial power keenly during even the most everyday encounters in Britain. Pandita Ramabai arrived in London in 1883 seeking a medical education and left in 1886, having resisted the Anglican Church's attempts to make her an evangelical missionary. Cornelia Sorabji went to Oxford to study law and became the first Indian woman to be called to the Bar. Behramji Malabari sought help for his Indian reform projects in England, and subjected London to colonial scrutiny in the process. Their experiences form the basis of this wide-ranging, clearly written, and imaginative investigation of diasporic movement in the colonial metropolis.

Genres: History

293 pages, Hardcover

First published February 28, 1998

About the author

Antoinette Burton is Catherine C. and Bruce A. Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies, Department of History, University of Illinois. Among her books are Dwelling in the Archive: Women Writing House, Home, and History in Late Colonial India and At the Heart of the Empire: Indians and the Colonial Encounter in Late-Victorian Britain.

Also Antoinette M. Burton

Reviews

[Sarah]

A quick read of commentary on three distinct experiences of Indians in late-nineteenth century Britain.