The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom Contributor(s): Dirks, Nicholas B. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0521053722 ISBN-13: 9780521053723 Publisher: Cambridge University Press OUR PRICE: $56.04 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: December 2007 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - History | Asia - India & South Asia - Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social |
Dewey: 954.82 |
Series: Cambridge South Asian Studies |
Physical Information: 1.01" H x 5.5" W x 8.5" (1.26 lbs) 500 pages |
Themes: - Cultural Region - Indian - Cultural Region - Asian |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: A pioneering piece of ethnohistory, The Hollow Crown uses a variety of interdisciplinary means to reconstruct the sociocultural history of a warrior polity in south India between the fourteenth and the twentieth centuries. Central to the book is the belief that comparative sociology has systematically denied the importance of the Indian state and obscured the political basis of Indian society by representing caste as fundamentally a religious system. In reconstructing the history of the polity that eventually became the colonial princely state of Pudukkottai, Dr Dirks therefore raises a whole series of issues concerning the methodologies of history and anthropology, the character of Tamil kingship and social organization, the relationship between politics and ritual, the impact of colonialism and 'modernization', and the dynamics of the whole last millennium of south Indian history. |