Harald Fischer-Tiné

Susanne Gehrmann

Empires and Boundaries: Rethinking Race, Class, and Gender in Colonial Settings is an exciting collection of original essays exploring the meaning and existence of conflicting and coexisting hierarchies in colonial settings. With investigations into the colonial past of a diversity of regions – including South Asia, South-East Asia, and Africa – the dozen notable international scholars collected here offer a truly inter-disciplinary approach to understanding the structures and workings of power in British, French, Dutch, German, and Italian colonial contexts. Integrating a historical approach with perspectives and theoretical tools specific to disciplines such as social anthropology, literary and film studies, and gender studies, Empires and Boundaries: Rethinking Race, Class, and Gender in Colonial Settings, is a striking and ambitious contribution to the scholarship of imperialism and post-colonialism and an essential read for anyone interested in the revolution being undergone in these fields of study.

Race, Class, and Gender in Colonial Settings

Empires and Boundaries

Michael Mann

A fresh and stimulating examination of the ideology, programmes, expressions and consequences of the British 'civilizing mission' in South Asia.

Cultural Ideology in British India

Colonialism as Civilizing Mission

Stefan Huebner

Ian Tyrrell

A half century after its founding in London in 1844, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) became the first NGO to effectively push a modernization agenda around the globe. Soon followed by a sister organization, the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), founded in 1855, the Y movement defined its global mission in 1889. Although their agendas have been characterized as predominantly religious, both the YMCA and YWCA were also known for their new vision of a global civil society and became major agents in the worldwide dissemination of modern “Western” bodies of knowledge. The YMCA’s and YWCA’s “secular” social work was partly rooted in the Anglo-American notions of the “social gospel” that became popular during the 1890s. The Christian lay organizations’ vision of a “Protestant Modernity” increasingly globalized their “secular” social work that transformed notions of science, humanitarianism, sports, urban citizenship, agriculture, and gender relations. Spreading Protestant Modernity shows how the YMCA and YWCA became crucial in circulating various forms of knowledge and practices that were related to this vision, and how their work was co-opted by governments and rival NGOs eager to achieve similar ends. The studies assembled in this collection explore the influence of the YMCA’s and YWCA’s work on highly diverse societies in South, Southeast, and East Asia; North America; Africa; and Eastern Europe. Focusing on two of the most prominent representative groups within the Protestant youth, social service, and missionary societies (the so-called “Protestant International”), the book provides new insights into the evolution of global civil society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and its multifarious, seemingly secular, legacies for today’s world. Spreading Protestant Modernity offers a compelling read for those interested in global history, the history of colonialism and decolonization, the history of Protestant internationalism, and the trajectories of global civil society. While each study is based on rigorous scholarship, the discussion and analyses are in accessible language that allows everyone from undergraduate students to advanced academics to appreciate the Y movement’s role in social transformations across the world.

Global Perspectives on the Social Work of the YMCA and YWCA, 1889–1970

Spreading Protestant Modernity

Jana Tschurenev

At the beginning of the 21st century, alcoholism, transnational drug trafficking and drug addiction constitute major problems in various South Asian countries. The production, circulation and consumption of intoxicating substances created (and responded to) social upheavals in the region and had widespread economic, political and cultural repercussions on an international level. This book looks at the cultural, social, and economic history of intoxicants in South Asia, and analyses the role that alcohol and drugs have played in the region. The book explores the linkages between changing meanings of intoxicating substances, the making of and contestations over colonial and national regimes of regulation, economics, and practices and experiences of consumption. It shows the development of current meanings of intoxicants in South Asia – in terms of politics, cultural norms and identity formation – and the way in which the history of drugs and alcohol is enmeshed in the history of modern empires and nation states — even in a country in which a staunch teetotaller and active anti-drug crusader like Mohandas Gandhi is presented as the ‘father of the nation’. Primarily a historical analysis, the book also includes perspectives from Modern Indology and Cultural Anthropology and situates developments in South Asia in wider imperial and global contexts. It is of interest to scholars working on the social and cultural history of alcohol and drugs, South Asian Studies and Global History.

Intoxicating Affairs

A History of Alcohol and Drugs in Modern South Asia

Stefan Huebner,Ian Tyrrell

A half century after its founding in London in 1844, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) became the first NGO to effectively push a modernization agenda around the globe. Soon followed by a sister organization, the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), founded in 1855, the Y-movement defined its global mission in 1889. Although their agendas have been characterized as predominantly religious, both the YMCA and YWCA were also known for their new vision of a global civil society and became major agents in the world-wide dissemination of modern “Western” bodies of knowledge. The YMCA’s and YWCA’s “secular” social work was partly rooted in the Anglo-American notions of the “social gospel” that became popular during the 1890s. The Christian lay organizations’ vision of a “Protestant Modernity” increasingly globalized their “secular” social work that transformed notions of science, humanitarianism, sports, urban citizenship, agriculture, and gender relations. Spreading Protestant Modernity shows how the YMCA and YWCA became crucial in circulating various forms of knowledge and practices that were related to this vision, and how their work was coopted by governments and rival NGOs eager to achieve similar ends. The studies assembled in this collection explore the influence of the YMCA’s and YWCA’s work on highly diverse societies in South, Southeast, and East Asia, North America, Africa, and Eastern Europe. Focusing on two of the most prominent representative groups within the Protestant youth, social service, and missionary societies (the so-called “Protestant International”), the book provides new insights into the evolution of global civil society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and its multifarious, seemingly secular, legacies for today’s world. Spreading Protestant Modernity offers a compelling read for those interested in global history, the history of colonialism and decolonization, the history of Protestant internationalism, and the trajectories of global civil society. While each study is based on rigorous scholarship, the discussion and analyses are in accessible language that allows everyone from undergraduate students to advanced academics to appreciate the Y-movement’s role in social transformations across the world.

This book is the first critical biography on Shyamji Krishnavarma — scholar, journalist and national revolutionary who lived in exile outside India from 1897 to 1930. His ideas were crucial in the creation of an extremist wing of anti-imperial nationalism. The work delves into a fascinating range of issues such as colonialism and knowledge, political violence, cosmopolitanism, and diaspora. Lucidly written, and with an insightful analysis of Krishnavarma’s life and times, this will greatly interest scholars and researchers of modern Indian history, politics, the nationalist movement, as well as the informed lay reader.

Sanskrit, Sociology and Anti-Imperialism

Shyamji Krishnavarma

This book argues that the history of colonial empires has been shaped to a considerable extent by negative emotions such as anxiety, fear and embarrassment as well as by the regular occurrence of panics. The case studies it assembles examine the various ways in which panics and anxieties were generated in imperial situations and how they shook up the dynamics between seemingly all-powerful colonizers and the apparently defenceless colonized. Drawing from examples of the British, Dutch and German colonial experience, the volume sketches out some of the main areas (such as disease, native ‘savagery’ or sexual transgression) that generated panics or created anxieties in colonial settings and analyses the most common varieties of practical, discursive and epistemic strategies adopted by the colonisers to curb the perceived threats.

Empires on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Anxieties, Fear and Panic in Colonial Settings

Das vorliegende Buch analysiert die Implikationen eines Kulturkontaktes unter kolonialen Bedingungen. Anhand eines Fallbeispiels aus Britisch-Indien zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts wird das Spannungsfeld zwischen der Forderung nach geistiger Dekolonisation einerseits und dem Bedurfnis nach selektiver Annahme von Elementen der Moderne andererseits untersucht. Es beleuchtet exemplarisch die Rolle einer spatkolonialen Erziehungsinstitution und des von ihr propagierten Bildungsideals fur die Konstituierung einer kulturell und religios gefarbten nationalen Identitat. Eckpfeiler dieses Prozesses der nationalen Identitatsstiftung sind u. a. die eugenische 'Veredlung' der Bevolkerung, die Ver- breitung staatsburgerlicher Tugenden, die Schaffung einer 'Nationalgeschichte', sowie die Verbreitung einer einheitlichen 'Nationalsprache'. Die Studie verknupft damit ein aktuelles Forschungsproblem der Politikwissenschaft mit Fragestellungen und Methodik von Geschichtswissenschaft und Moderner Indologie. Auf einer ubergreifenden Ebene pladiert das Buch fur eine Erweiterung der Perspektive bei der Analyse kolonialer Prozesse. Die Fallstudie demonstriert, dass die alleinige Fokussierung auf die 'Peripherie', die seit einiger Zeit den akademischen Diskurs der betroffenen Disziplinen bestimmt, zu kurz greift. Wichtige Aspekte des transkulturellen Phanomens 'Kolonialismus' bleiben unverstandlich, wenn man den kolonialen Kontakt nicht als reziproke Beziehung begreift und auch ereignis- und geis- tesgeschichtliche Verflechtungen mit der 'Metropole' gebuhrend berucksichtigt. Das vorliegende Buch analysiert die Implikationen eines Kulturkontaktes unter kolonialen Bedingungen. Anhand eines Fallbeispiels aus Britisch-Indien zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts wird das Spannungsfeld zwischen der Forderung nach geistiger Dekolonisation einerseits und dem Bedurfnis nach selektiver Annahme von Elementen der Moderne andererseits untersucht. Es beleuchtet exemplarisch die Rolle einer spatkolonialen Erziehungsinstitution und des von ihr propagierten Bildungsideals fur die Konstituierung einer kulturell und religios gefarbten nationalen Identitat. Eckpfeiler dieses Prozesses der nationalen Identitatsstiftung sind u. a. die eugenische 'Veredlung' der Bevolkerung, die Ver- breitung staatsburgerlicher Tugenden, die Schaffung einer 'Nationalgeschichte', sowie die Verbreitung einer einheitlichen 'Nationalsprache'. Die Studie verknupft damit ein aktuelles Forschungsproblem der Politikwissenschaft mit Fragestellungen und Methodik von Geschichtswissenschaft und Moderner Indologie. Auf einer ubergreifenden Ebene pladiert das Buch fur eine Erweiterung der Perspektive bei der Analyse kolonialer Prozesse. Die Fallstudie demonstriert, dass die alleinige Fokussierung auf die 'Peripherie', die seit einiger Zeit den akademischen Diskurs der betroffenen Disziplinen bestimmt, zu kurz greift. Wichtige Aspekte des transkulturellen Phanomens 'Kolonialismus' bleiben unverstandlich, wenn man den kolonialen Kontakt nicht als reziproke Beziehung begreift und auch ereignis- und geis- tesgeschichtliche Verflechtungen mit der 'Metropole' gebuhrend berucksichtigt.

Harald Fischer-Tiné

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