Books on South Asia
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Tall tales and true: India, historiography and British imperial imaginings
edited by Kate Brittlebank
2008, $29.95, ISBN 9781876924614
Tall tales and true: India, historiography and British imperial imaginings is an interdisciplinary collection of eight case studies. Written in an engaging and accessible style, in order to appeal not only to specialists but also to students, teachers and general readers, it explores issues relating to the construction of historical narratives. The book presents re-assessments of a number of emblematic people and events that appear within the narrative of British imperial power: the Black Hole of Calcutta, Governor-General Warren Hastings, Tipu Sultan of Mysore, Arthur Wellesley and the battle of Assaye, the Sikh Maharaja Ranjit Singh, William Sleeman and the thugs, and the Indian Revolt of 1857-8. It concludes with an examination of the life of Madan Mohan Malaviya, an ambiguous figure who has been difficult to place in conventional narratives of Indian nationalism.
The iconic female: goddesses of India, Nepal and Tibet
edited by Jayant Bhalchandra Bapat and Ian Mabbett, 2008, $44.95, ISBN 978 1 876924 66 9
The energy of the goddess fills every facet of Indian life. To her devotees, the goddess appears in myriad forms: a mother, boon-giver, destroyer of evil, a divine lover, a protector and/or a bloodthirsty ogress. The more we discover about her, the more teasingly complex and multivalent the Devi appears. She is both constant and changing, loved and feared, worshipped and forgotten only to be re-discovered and worshipped. In this book, for the first time, ten Australian researchers working on many aspects of the Devi have come together and offered, in a single collection, new research on the divine female. This book is the beginning of a renewed quest for the iconic Devi who continues to emerge in her many, unpredictably powerful forms.