Permanent Black and Harvard University Press have, over the past few years, published eleven books together (listed below). The latest to appear, strongly recommended by Mahesh Rangarajan among others, is
This book is about the hunting of tigers
and leopards, wild boar and game birds, by Indian princes a hundred years ago.
Focusing on Rajput princely states in the
late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, it reveals a world of royal
huntsmen differing in rank and prestige, ambition and personality, culture and
politics. Their hunting practices, involving large and small game—striped,
horned, and feathered—in environments ranging from desert to jungle, are
described in detail. Weaponry and guns, costumes and trophies, shooting towers
and photography, are among the book’s many other fascinating subjects.
These Indian princes operated within
contexts shaped by local claims and hierarchies, regional rivalries and
alliances, and British imperial interests. They were influenced by ties to
ancestral territory, nostalgia for bygone days, the rise of conservationism,
and the martial associations of hunting and sportsmanship.
Informed by the analytical approaches of
environmental historians, animal geographers, art historians, and ecological
anthropologists, this book demonstrates that no strict divisions existed
between human and animal realms in princely India. Sovereigns, wild animals,
and environments were interactive participants in the construction of
territory, identity, and history.
Julie E. Hughes argues that this princely
ecology could not produce harmonious environments for wildlife or people. She
links the challenges and inequities associated with wildlife conservation in
contemporary South Asia to these princely pursuits.
For anyone wondering if there was more to
grand colonial hunts than simply killing animals, this is the right book. For
anyone curious about what India’s princes did on their own turf and in their
own time, and in environmental history, this is certainly the right book.
JULIE E. HUGHES is Assistant Professor of
History at Vassar College, USA. Her PhD in History is from the University of
Texas at Austin.
Hardback / 302pp + 12 colour
photos + 4 maps / Rs 895 / ISBN 81-7824-361-X / South Asia rights / November
2012
TITLES COPUBLISHED BY PERMANENT BLACK AND HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1. Sugata Bose, A HUNDRED
HORIZONS
2. Nicholas B. Dirks: THE
SCANDAL OF EMPIRE
3. Martha Nussbaum, THE
CLASH WITHIN
4. Ayesha Jalal, PARTISANS
OF ALLAH
5. Neeti Nair, CHANGING
HOMELANDS
6. Martha Nussbaum, CREATING
CAPABILITIES
7. Nico Slate, COLORED
COSMOPOLITANISM
8. Romila Thapar, THE PAST
BEFORE US (forthcoming)
9. Julie Hughes, ANIMAL
KINGDOMS
10. Niraja Gopal Jayal,
CITIZENSHIP AND ITS DISCONTENTS (forthcoming)
11. Steven I. Wilkinson,
NATION, ARMY, AND DEMOCRACY IN INDIA SINCE 1947 (forthcoming)
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