A unique and compelling volume with a great deal of fascinating material and provocative observations. Nicholas B. Dirks's essays will be extremely influential for the large and growing public interested in India.
David Szanton, University of California, Berkeley, and editor of The Politics of Knowledge: Area Studies and the Disciplines Using the conceit of an autobiography, this book dazzles with luminous reflections on the archive of knowledge on India. As a leading scholar of India in the American academy, Nicholas B. Dirks offers original insights on the history and politics of scholarship, on empire and its entailment in the production of knowledge, and on the career of history and anthropology as disciplines. Autobiography of an Archive showcases Dirks at his best as a scholar and cultural critic.
Gyan Prakash, author of Mumbai Fables Nicholas B. Dirks has taken to heart the disciplinary alliance between Anthropology and History that Keith Thomas so fruitfully articulated in theory (and then pursued in practice) a half century ago. In these essays he artfully pursues it himself via an autobiographical unfolding of his own archival path of discovery as a scholar of India. The essays will be greatly admired not only for their knowledgeable, distinctive, and acute grasp of the difficult and well-mined phenomena of kingship and caste and colonialism but also for the sustained and detailed angle of sympathy and regard they present on those oppressed by that phenomena.
Akeel Bilgrami, Columbia University Autobiography of an Archive is a compelling synthesis of his extraordinary career as a scholar, teacher, and institution builder. Nicholas B. Dirks's account of the interconnections between anthropology and history and his commitment to the internationalization of liberal learning make his book a vital contribution to contemporary discussions of globalization and education.
Michael S. Roth, president, Wesleyan University Nicholas B. Dirks, with his consummate clarity and stylistic finesse, takes the reader on an autobiographical and historical journey to show both how history and culture are imbricated in the making of these fields and more generally to why history so matters to the future visions of the vitality and the openness we must embrace to understand our world today.
Ann Laura Stoler, New School for Social Research An incredible book, a work that needs to be relished slowly... Anthropology News Taut, clear language, which, at times, becomes almost lyrical. H-Net