Edward Said and the Cultural History of British Colonialism in India

Essay from the year 2009 in the subject History - Basics, European University Institute (Department of History, Florenz), language: English, abstract: This text discusses the role of culture in the history of European colonialism. It takes Said's notion of "e;Orientalism"e; as a starting point. It then discusses two very different books that have tried to make Said's notion useful for the study of concrete colonial situations: Christopher Bayly's "e;Empire and Information"e;, and Nicholas Dirks' "e;Castes of Mind"e;. Whereas Bayly's concept of an "e;information order"e; tries to undermine ideas about a European hegemony of knowledge, Dirks stresses the far-reaching influence European concepts had even on post-colonial notions of caste in India.