India in the American Imaginary, 1780s–1880s

Description

This book seeks to frame the “the idea of India” in the American imaginary within a transnational lens that is attentive to global flows of goods, people, and ideas within the circuits of imperial and maritime economies in nineteenth century America (roughly 1780s-1880s). This diverse and interdisciplinary volume – with essays by upcoming as well as established scholars – aims to add to an understanding of the fast changing terrain of economic, political, and cultural life in the US as it emerged from being a British colony to having imperial ambitions of its own on the global stage. The essays trace, variously, the evolution of the changing self-image of a nation embodying a surprisingly cosmopolitan sensibility, open to different cultural values and customs in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century to one that slowly adopted rigid and discriminatory racial and cultural attitudes spawned by the widespread missionary activities of the ABCFM and the fierce economic pulls and pushes of American mercantilism by the end of the nineteenth century. The different uses of India become a way of refining an American national identity. Front Matter ....Pages i-xxiii Front Matter ....Pages 1-1 India in the American Imaginary, 1780s–1880s (Rajender Kaur, Anupama Arora)....Pages 3-37 Front Matter ....Pages 39-39 An Eye for Prices, an Eye for Souls: American Merchants and Missionaries in the Indian Subcontinent, 1784–1838 (Michael A. Verney)....Pages 41-74 The Empire Comes Home: Thomas Law’s Mixed-Race Family in the Early American Republic (Rosemarie Zagarri)....Pages 75-108 Front Matter ....Pages 109-109 Indo-American Encounters in Melville and Thoreau: Philosophy, Commerce, and Religious Dialogue (Brian Yothers)....Pages 111-140 “Every India Mail”: The Lamplighter and the Prospect of U.S. Transoceanic (Postal) Empire, 1847–1854 (Mark B. Kelley)....Pages 141-171 Front Matter ....Pages 173-173 Cast in Print: The Indian Mutiny, Asiatic Racial Forms, and American Domesticity (Anirudra Thapa)....Pages 175-197 India and U.S. Cultures of Reform: Caste as Keyword (Susan M. Ryan)....Pages 199-227 “Considered a Citizen of the United States”: George DeGrasse, a South Asian in Early (African) America (Pratibha Kanakamedala)....Pages 229-243 Front Matter ....Pages 245-245 “A Dazzle of Light”: Edwin Lord Weeks and Royal India (Romita Ray)....Pages 247-281 Back Matter ....Pages 283-292