A01=Sujit Sivasundaram
Author_Sujit Sivasundaram
botany
british rule
Category=NHF
Category=NHTM
Category=NHTQ
colonial
colonialism
colony
cultural studies
culture
customs
education
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
ethnography
ethnology
geography
governance
governing
government
great britain
imperialism
indian ocean
interactions
island
islanders
islanding
kandy
land
manuscript
medicine
migration
politics
south asia
sri lanka
state building
subjugation
territorialization
trade
Product details
- ISBN 9780226845661
- Weight: 481g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 06 Oct 2025
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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A groundbreaking retelling of the advent of British rule in Sri Lanka.
How did the modern nation of Sri Lanka come to be? In search of an answer to this question, Islanded returns us to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and to the advance of the British on the kingdom of Kandy. This advance saw the fall of the last foothold of kingly rule, centered in the highlands of the island. The British undertook a process of “islanding” and “partitioning,” which cast the island, its nature and geography, its religious and ethnic character, and its historical traditions and maritime culture as separate from British domains in mainland India and elsewhere.
Kings had seen themselves as rightful rulers of the whole territory of the island. Now, this right was violently extended by British colonists through the application of a model of crown rule and modern bureaucracy that tied ethnicity to language and religion, employing essentialized but not fully realized patterns that would continue to trouble the modern nation. Picking up a range of unusual themes, from migration, orientalism, and ethnography to botany, medicine, and education, Islanded is a groundbreaking text in Sri Lankan history writing, shaping discussions of the imperial transition in South Asia.
How did the modern nation of Sri Lanka come to be? In search of an answer to this question, Islanded returns us to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and to the advance of the British on the kingdom of Kandy. This advance saw the fall of the last foothold of kingly rule, centered in the highlands of the island. The British undertook a process of “islanding” and “partitioning,” which cast the island, its nature and geography, its religious and ethnic character, and its historical traditions and maritime culture as separate from British domains in mainland India and elsewhere.
Kings had seen themselves as rightful rulers of the whole territory of the island. Now, this right was violently extended by British colonists through the application of a model of crown rule and modern bureaucracy that tied ethnicity to language and religion, employing essentialized but not fully realized patterns that would continue to trouble the modern nation. Picking up a range of unusual themes, from migration, orientalism, and ethnography to botany, medicine, and education, Islanded is a groundbreaking text in Sri Lankan history writing, shaping discussions of the imperial transition in South Asia.
Sujit Sivasundaram is professor of world history and fellow of Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge. He is the author of the prize-winning Waves Across the South: A New History of Revolution and Empire, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
