Author Description

Review"[T]his book reflects some of the best work about this region during its period."--Journal of Interdisciplinary HistoryProduct DescriptionThis set of historical essays challenges many cherished assumptions about the century between the Mughal empire and the British colonial period. Based mainly on archival material in old Marathi, a language inaccessible to most scholars, Stewart Gordon examines the caste system ineighteenth-century India by reconsidering castes as open groups defining themselves through processes of power and military service, not as closed groups reinforced by marriage and ideas of ritual purity.About the AuthorStewart Gordon is an Associate of the Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan.