The Black Hole of Empire: History of a Global Practice of
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Chatterjee, Partha, PUBLISHER: Princeton University Press, When Siraj, the ruler ong>ofong> Bengal, overran the British settlement ong>ofong> Calcutta in , he allegedly jailed 146 European prisoners overnight in a cramped prison. ong>Ofong> the group, 123 died ong>ofong> suffocation. While this episode was never independently confirmed, the story ong>ofong> "the black hole ong>ofong> Calcutta" was widely circulated and seen by the British public as an atrocity committed by savage colonial subjects. "The Black Hole ong>ofong> Empire" follows the ever-changing representations ong>ofong> this historical event and founding myth ong>ofong> the British Empire in India, from the eighteenth century to the present. Partha Chatterjee explores how a supposed tragedy paved the ideological foundations for the civilizing force ong>ofong> British imperial rule and territorial control in India. Chatterjee takes a close look at the justifications ong>ofong> modern empire by liberal thinkers, international lawyers, and conservative traditionalists, and examines the intellectual and political responses ong>ofong> the colonized, including those ong>ofong> Bengali nationalists. The two sides ong>ofong> empire's entwined ong>historyong> are brought together in the story ong>ofong> the Black Hole memorial: set up in Calcutta in , demolished in , restored by Lord Curzon in , and removed in to a neglected churchyard. Challenging conventional truisms ong>ofong> imperial ong>historyong>, nationalist scholarship, and liberal visions ong>ofong> globalization, Chatterjee argues that empire is a necessary and continuing part ong>ofong> the ong>historyong> ong>ofong> the modern state.