Orientalism, Empire, and National Culture: India, 1770-1880

Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies

by Michael S. Dodson

Orientalist research has most often been characterised as an integral element of the European will-to-power over the Asian world. This study seeks to nuance this view, and asserts that British Orientalism in India was also an inherently complex and unstable enterprise, predicated upon the cultural authority of the Sanskrit pandits.

Genres: History, India

282 pages, Hardcover

First published February 15, 2007

Reviews

[Hafsa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dodson’s work seeks to question the hegemony of colonial rule in two ways: one, to showcase the nuanced nature of British orienalism, using examples of constructive orientalism and engraftment and two, to display the role of the Indian intellectual/religious elites (the pandits) in collaboration with and sometimes subversion to the orientalist projects.

[Kraig Puccia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dodson explores how Orientalist research has been characterized as perhaps the most significant element and invention of European powers in their quest to colonize and exert their influence over the Asian world. This book primarily focuses on the case of India in regard to British Orientalism, sometimes referred to as Indology when dealing specifically with India, in order to better understand how the cultural authority exercised from the British actually originated from cooperative Sanskrit scholars who sought to gain local power, prestige, and eminence over the largely Hindu populations. Sanskrit, which would ultimately become the language of Indian law, culture, and history because of British historiographical control, became the basis of Indian society through this complex and unstable enterprise that existed between colonial authorities and small groups of scholars.