A fascinating tale of four generations of English women who lived in India and Burma during the Raj, Daughters of the Empire is a rich and textured social narrative of the time. Based on an extensive collection of letters, diaries and photographs, it gives us remarkable insights into the lives of Iris, her mother Violet, grandmother Annie, as well as various aunts and great-aunts. Iris Macfarlane came to India in 1939 and stayed for almost three decades. She returned in 1996 after a gap of almost thirty years, and the visit led her to reflect on the lives of her female forebears–from her great-grandmother’s recollections of mid-nineteenth-century India and the uprising of 1857, to her own experience as a tea-planter’s wife. For anyone interested in the social history of the British empire and its colonies–particularly India and Burma (Myanmar), or of imperial missions in general, this deeply moving and brilliantly written account will reveal a world which is familiar, yet strange. Few people could tell the story like Macfarlane. Her account is reflective yet analytical, astute and critical, both of herself and of the wider colonial world in which her family lived and worked. An enlightening introduction by Susan Bayly puts Macfarlane’s account in a wider frame, analysing earlier writings on families of empires and how they were used to defend and legitimize colonial rule. Conjuring up the lives of women painfully caught between two worlds, the book will interest general readers as well as scholars and students of women’s history, colonial and social history, and anthropology.
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