HIST 6510 - [India and British Political Thought c. 1600 - 1850]

Spring. 4 credits.

Next offered 2015-2016.

T. R. Travers.

This seminar explores at how Britons who fought, traded, conquered and governed in early modern South Asia thought about their own actions, and also about the states and cultures they encountered. What did Britons think about the Mughal empire, and how did they understand and explain the rise of the British empire in India? What opportunities existed for intellectual exchanges between British and Indian political ideas in this period? In what ways did encounters with India feed back into British political thought?