Castes of mind : colonialism and the making of modern India /

Dirks (Columbia Univ.; The Hollow Crown: Ethnography of an Indian Kingdom, 2nd ed., 1993) looks at the history of caste during the British colonial period. This should be understood as a postcolonialist critique and not a survey of caste itself. The volume is divided into four parts: "The 'Invention' of Caste," "Colonization of the Archive," "The Ethnographic State," and " Recasting India: Caste, Community, and Politics." Dirks is a follower of Bernard Cohn, the first anthropologist "to turn his attention to the dangerous effects of colonial discourse and colonial institutions." To read Dirks, one might easily get the impression that caste did not exist, that it was a figment of the imagination of colonia1 administrators. The author deals in passing with the work of such figures as Edgar Thurston, H.H. Risley, and H.H. Wilson, not to mention Gandhi, Ambedkar, and E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker, but for a reliable guide, see Susan Bayly's Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age (CH, Mar'00). Dirks's postcolonialist, self-referential, jargon-filled study and pretentious tome should be avoided. R. D. Long Eastern Michigan University

Is India's caste system the remnant of ancient India's social practices or the result of the historical relationship between India and British colonial rule? Dirks (history and anthropology, Columbia Univ.) elects to support the latter view. Adhering to the school of Orientalist thought promulgated by Edward Said and Bernard Cohn, Dirks argues that British colonial control of India for 200 years pivoted on its manipulation of the caste system. He hypothesizes that caste was used to organize India's diverse social groups for the benefit of British control. His thesis embraces substantial and powerfully argued evidence. It suffers, however, from its restricted focus to mainly southern India and its near polemic and obsessive assertions. Authors with differing views on India's ethnology suffer near-peremptory dismissal. Nevertheless, this groundbreaking work of interpretation demands a careful scholarly reading and response.-John F. Riddick, Central Michigan Univ. Lib., Mt. Pleasant (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.