Empire Families by Elizabeth Buettner
What was life like for the British men, women, and children who lived in late imperial India while serving the Raj? Empire Families treats the Raj as a family affair and examines how, and why, many remained linked with India over several generations. Due to the fact that India was never meant for permanent European settlement, many families developed deep-rooted ties with India while never formally emigrating. Their lives were dominated by long periods of residence abroad punctuated by repeated travels between Britain and India: childhood overseas followed by separation from parents and education in Britain; adult returns to India through careers or marriage; furloughs, and ultimately retirement, in Britain. As a result, many Britons neither felt themselves to be rooted in India, nor felt completely at home when back in Britain. Their permanent impermanence led to the creation of distinct social realities and cultural identities. Empire Families sets out to recreate this society by looking at a series of families, their lives in India, and their travels back to Britain. Focusing for the first time on the experiences of parents and children alike, and including the Beveridge, Butler, Orwell, and Kipling families, Elizabeth Buettner uncovers the meanings of growing up in the Raj and an itinerant imperial lifestyle.
One of the most interesting studies of the Empire to appear in recent years * Contemporary Review *
[an] impressive range of source material [..] very rich in detail. * David Omissi, Twentieth Century British History *
The British Raj still lives... it springs to complex life in the beautiful works of scholarship as exemplified by Elizabeth Buettner's Empire Families. * Leonard Gordon, The Times Higher Education Supplement *
One very much hopes that further children of the Raj will now come forward, and that before committing their memories to posterity will consult Elizabeth Buettner's excellent book. * John Gardiner, History Today *
...an inspired study...a valuable and scholarly contribution to the social history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, adding a new dimension to Britain's imperial past. * The Social History Society *
[an] impressive range of source material [..] very rich in detail. * David Omissi, Twentieth Century British History *
The British Raj still lives... it springs to complex life in the beautiful works of scholarship as exemplified by Elizabeth Buettner's Empire Families. * Leonard Gordon, The Times Higher Education Supplement *
One very much hopes that further children of the Raj will now come forward, and that before committing their memories to posterity will consult Elizabeth Buettner's excellent book. * John Gardiner, History Today *
...an inspired study...a valuable and scholarly contribution to the social history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, adding a new dimension to Britain's imperial past. * The Social History Society *
Buettner, Elizabeth: - Elizabeth Buettner joined the University of Amsterdam as Professor of Modern History in 2014, prior to which she taught at the University of York. She received her BA from Barnard College of Columbia University and her MA and PhD from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In 2012-2013, she held a Senior Research Fellowship at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies in Germany in conjunction with a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship, and in 2006 she was selected to participate in the International Research Seminar on Decolonization sponsored by the National History Center, the Mellon Foundation, and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Her publications include Empire Families: Britons and Late Imperial India (2004), which was awarded the Women's History Network Book Prize and led to her being shortlisted for the Young Academic Author of the Year award by the Times Higher Education Supplement in 2005. She has written articles in the Journal of Modern History, the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, History and Memory, the Scottish Historical Review (where her piece won the Royal Historical Society's David Berry Prize), Annales de Dü¾Ž–”¼mographie Historique, Ab Imperio, and Food and History. Contributions to edited collections include the chapter 'Ethnicity' in A Concise Companion to History, edited by Ulinka Rublack (2011).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780199287659 |
| ISBN 10 | 0199287651 |
| Title | Empire Families |
| Author | Elizabeth Buettner |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Year published | 2005-10-13 |
| Number of pages | 324 |
| Prizes | Winner of Joint Winner: Women's History Network Book Prize 2004. |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |