system of transliteration, except where the Wade-Giles is more familiar,
e.g. Chiang Kai-Shek instead of Jiang Jieshi.
As with all academic ventures, and particularly in a book such as
this, it is important not to suffer from the delusion of authorship. I should
like in particular to thank those with whom I have had the privilege
of discussing this book and the themes surrounding it, in some cases
resorting to the Ancient Mariner’s technique: the editors, Robert Pearce
and Victoria Peters; the (anonymous) referees; Pertti Ahonen, Jill Alpes,
Robert Anderson, Ganesh Bagchi, Chris Bayly, Crispin Bates, Debraj
Bhattacharya, Bhaskar Chakrabarty, Subhas Ranjan Chakraborti, Rajarshi
Dasgupta, Ari Ercole, Margret Frenz, Anna Gust, Annemarie Hafner,
Joachim Heidrich, Petra Heidrich, Aparna Jack, MK Karna, Sudipta
Kaviraj, Ian Kershaw, Aparajita Koch, Avinash Kumar, Kerstin Lehr,
Jon Mclure, Hiren Mukerjee, Rakesh Pandey, Rajat Kanta Ray, Rathin
Roy, Sulagna Roy, Subir Sinha, Hari Vasudevan, Jeff Vernon, Hugh
Wilford, Ian Zachariah...They should not, I imagine, like to share the
blame for what I have written. To that extent, at least, I should like to
identify myself as the author.
The last chapters of this book were written during and in the after-
math of the American and British invasion of Iraq. As historians of
imperialism, we might entertain the hope or fear that the theme is
irrelevant to the contemporary world. Fortunately or unfortunately,
this is not the case; yet the silencing of debates around the theme of
imperialism has been a feature of public historical memory in the
developed world since formal decolonisation was achieved. This deafening
silence needs to be addressed, and I hope that in a small way this book
might help in doing so.
PREFACE xxv