The United States and South Asia from the Age of Empire to Decolonization

A History of Entanglements

Harald Fischer-Tiné, Nico Slate

• Publisher: Leiden University Press
• Year: 2022
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9789400604421
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The contributions assembled in this volume present cutting-edge research that examines the network of Indo-American interconnections over a wider time frame. The case studies stretch into the early decades of the American republic hinting at a longer history of mutual influence and exchange, beyond the registers of 'the American century' of globalization. By bringing together academics working across disciplines ranging from history to cultural and literary studies, comparative religion, political science and sociology, this volume thus foregrounds and historicizes the complex, multi-sited, polyvalent nature of the Indo-US encounter. At the same time, the book explore the possibilities of methodologically engaging with established categories—such as the nation, the imperial and Empire—and test alternative typologies to better understand this encounter. Taken together, our authors reconstruct the myriad ways in which Americans and Indians have engaged with each other through trade, diplomacy, intellectual comradeship, missionary evangelism and revolutionary fervor.

Table of contents

• Table of Contents
• Introduction: Religion, Politics, and Development ― Mapping the Sites and Domains of Indo-American Exchange, c. 1850–1970
• Part I: Religion and Culture
• Chapter 1. A Gold Rush, Steamships, and Blackface : The New York Serenaders in San Francisco and India, early-1850s.
• Chapter 2. The Sepoy Rebellion and American Global Ambition
• Chapter 3. Fakir : How a Word from India Moved Through American Popular Culture for Nearly a Century
• Part II: Missionaries and Political Activists
• Chapter 4. American Humanitarianism in Colonial South Asia : The Famine Relief of the American Marathi Mission in Bombay, 1896–1900
• Chapter 5. ‘One fifth of the world’s boyhood’ : American ‘Boyology’ and the YMCA’s work with early adolescents in India (c. 1900–1950)
• Chapter 6. Taraknath Das: Race and Citizenship between India and the U.S.A.
• Chapter 7. Socialism, Nonviolence, and Civil Rights : The American Journeys of Rammanohar Lohia
• Part III: Social Sciences, Development Initiatives & Technocracy
• Chapter 8. Constructing an Indian Sociology : ‘Karimpur’, U.S. Area Studies and Cold War Social Science
• Chapter 9. The Development of Uttar Pradesh Agricultural University
• Chapter 10. The Bankura Horse as Development Object : Women’s Work, Indo-American Exchanges, and the Global Handicraft Trade
• Afterword
• Bibliography
• About the Authors
• Index