The beautifully illustrated and presented Mapping India by Manosi Lahiri, published this year by Niyogi Books in New Dehli, is a new addition to a number of works we hold which look at the act of mapping and India. These include Ian J. Barrow's Making history, drawing territory : British mapping in India, c. 1756-1905, Matthew H. Edney's Mapping an empire : the geographical construction of British India, 1765-1843, and Susan Gole's Indian maps and plans : from earliest times to the advent of European surveys.
Mapping India examines the mapping of India over the last 500 years, looking at the influence of war and commerce as the driving force for the mapping of India, and changes in cartography and access to maps through to the beginning of the 21st century. The book presents some of the famous maps which have depicted India and also influence cartography in India for several centuries.They reflect the influence and role fo the East India Company, of colonialism and of independence, and include maps of Partition, migration and famines.
Covering a broad period this work is notable for the beautiful reproductions of maps held in repositories including many Indian archives, especially previously classified (and therefore not made available to the public) maps in the National Archives of India; the British Library; the Royal Geographical Society; the Asiatic Society, Kolkata; the Asiatic Society of Mumbai; the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum at the City Palace, Jaipurl and the Susan Gole Collection at the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, New Dehli.
Showing posts with label book of the month. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book of the month. Show all posts
Wednesday, 25 July 2012
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
Book of the Month - The History of Col. Parke’s Administration whilst he was Captain-General and Chief Governor of the Leeward Islands
Senate House Library's Book of the Month featured one of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies' titles: George French's The History of Col. Parke’s Administration whilst he was Captain-General and Chief Governor of the Leeward Islands
The son of respected Virginian gentry, Daniel Parke (1669-1710) had strong ambitions to become governor of Virginia. Although disappointed in this goal, he was offered the governorship of the Leeward Islands. Arriving in Antigua in the summer of 1707, he alienated and antagonised both planters and traders with what was regarded as heavy-handed enforcement of the Acts of Trade, and provoked concerns leading to a riot as early as 1708. He was wounded in an ambush in October 1709 and killed on 7 December 1710, when the assembly and settlers turned on him and stormed the governor’s residence. The assassination of a Crown official by his subjects was a shocking event, much reported on back in England.
Most accounts of Col. Parke’s character show him in an unfavourable light, coming from sources hostile to his Virginian ambitions and alliances, or his time in Antigua. Parke had returned to Virginia from his first trip to England with a mistress and child, and rumours also suggest he had scandalised Antigua by trifling openly with the wives and daughters of planters, settlers and natives. George French, a close friend of Parke, writes more favourably, in reaction to “false insinuations” and criticisms of Parke. In his account French defends Parke’s actions while governor of the Leeward Islands from 1708 to 1710, gives many details of lawsuits, depositions, etc., discusses much-needed reforms carried out by Parke in the face of settler hostility, and describes in detail the cruelty with which Parke was treated in the rebellion: “they use him with the most utmost contempt and inhumanity. They strip him of his clothes, kick, spurn at, and beat him with the buts of their muskets, by which means at last they break his back. They drag him into the streets by a leg and arm, and his head trails and beats from step to step of the stone stairs at the entrance of the house, and he is dragged on the coarse gravelly street which raked the skin from his bones.”
This copy, one of fewer than a dozen in England recorded on ESTC, was transferred to the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library from the West India Committee Library in 1977. It previously belonged to the noted American book collector Samuel Latham Mitchell Barlow (1826-1889).
http://www.shl.lon.ac.uk/specialcollections/bookofthemonth/2010_08.shtml
The son of respected Virginian gentry, Daniel Parke (1669-1710) had strong ambitions to become governor of Virginia. Although disappointed in this goal, he was offered the governorship of the Leeward Islands. Arriving in Antigua in the summer of 1707, he alienated and antagonised both planters and traders with what was regarded as heavy-handed enforcement of the Acts of Trade, and provoked concerns leading to a riot as early as 1708. He was wounded in an ambush in October 1709 and killed on 7 December 1710, when the assembly and settlers turned on him and stormed the governor’s residence. The assassination of a Crown official by his subjects was a shocking event, much reported on back in England.
Most accounts of Col. Parke’s character show him in an unfavourable light, coming from sources hostile to his Virginian ambitions and alliances, or his time in Antigua. Parke had returned to Virginia from his first trip to England with a mistress and child, and rumours also suggest he had scandalised Antigua by trifling openly with the wives and daughters of planters, settlers and natives. George French, a close friend of Parke, writes more favourably, in reaction to “false insinuations” and criticisms of Parke. In his account French defends Parke’s actions while governor of the Leeward Islands from 1708 to 1710, gives many details of lawsuits, depositions, etc., discusses much-needed reforms carried out by Parke in the face of settler hostility, and describes in detail the cruelty with which Parke was treated in the rebellion: “they use him with the most utmost contempt and inhumanity. They strip him of his clothes, kick, spurn at, and beat him with the buts of their muskets, by which means at last they break his back. They drag him into the streets by a leg and arm, and his head trails and beats from step to step of the stone stairs at the entrance of the house, and he is dragged on the coarse gravelly street which raked the skin from his bones.”
This copy, one of fewer than a dozen in England recorded on ESTC, was transferred to the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library from the West India Committee Library in 1977. It previously belonged to the noted American book collector Samuel Latham Mitchell Barlow (1826-1889).
http://www.shl.lon.ac.uk/specialcollections/bookofthemonth/2010_08.shtml
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
At Last: A Christmas in the West Indies
A fitting title to highlight as we first experience snow this winter. The author, Charles Kingsley was an Engligh clergymen, novelist, and historian, best known perhaps for his book The Water Babies.
At Last: A Christmas in the West Indies, describes the author's travels to the West Indies, largely focussed on Trinidad, in 1869. The book is illustrated and includes botanical illustrations. It is in many ways a typical 'travel' book of its time, rich in description and presenting an 'imperial' position and outlook on the colony, although as critics such as Claudia Brandenstein, Simon Gikandi and Catherine Hall have pointed out, this position is complicated and in some respects an ambivalent one.
Kingsley went to the West Indies with liberal and Christian sympathies, but he found it difficult to be objective about what he witnessed due to his theological background and intellectual tradition. For example, he supported the strict control and supervision of the indentured Coolies, even though in England he was a strong advocate of emancipation and the creation of a '"moral bond"' between employee and employer. Gikandi argues that Kingsley reached this conclusion about the West Indian context not because of what he saw there or because of his understanding of the Coolies' own views and perspectives. "Rather the traveler reaches his conclusions from three mutually informing sources: official reports (both oral and written), intellectual Orientalism, and evolutionary doctrines".
Interested readers can of course consult this book in the library, It is also available in a full text digitised version within the Internet Archive.
This work is but one of many such works by travellers reporting on the Caribbean within the collection. If interested in other works please contact library staff.
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