The Bernard Cohn Omnibus

Bernard Cohn, a strong votary of an inter-disciplinary approach, brought together anthropology and history in his research, subsequently widening the scope of this interaction. His contribution to understanding the politics of colonial knowledge has been acknowledged by historians and anthropologists for over three decades. It was his conviction that it was difficult to study colonialism in South Asia without a study of the accompanying structural and cultural changes. This volume brings together posthumously three classic collections of Professor Cohn’s essays, which provide a comprehensive understanding of the working of colonialism in South Asia. A lucid foreword by Dipesh Chakrabarty pulls together various strands from the three collections while providing an insight into Bernard Cohn the person. An Anthropologist Among the Historians and Other Essays is a collection of some of Bernard Cohn’s earliest essays. It lays the theoretical foundation for bringing to history the anthropological tools which are so crucial to the study of colonial South Asia. Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge examines the manipulations of language and law and marks a shift into areas where colonial impact was considered minimal. Cohn here studies the links between knowledge gathering, codification of law based on orientalist formulations, and the task of governance through inferiorization of the colonized. India: The Social Anthropology of a Civilization is a historically anchored analysis of components of Indian civilization which have been of interest to anthropologists. It speaks of castes, religions, land relations, state formations, and the politics of the Indian subcontinent. Cohn’s use of ‘civilization’ as a focal concept also marks a break from the anthropological tradition of focus on the village as an analytical unit. Students and researchers will find this collection indispensable for studying aspects of South Asian history, society and politics and their roots in the colonial experience.