| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.1

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Nicholas B. Dirks. Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2001. Pp. xiii, 372. Cloth $55.00, paper $19.95.

This book by Nicholas B. Dirks explores the genealogy of our present understanding of caste and traces it to constructions of caste in British India. The book is divided into four parts. The first part lays out the argument of the book: that caste as we know it today is no remnant of India's ancient past but very much a modern phenomenon and a product of the colonial encounter. Dirks is not suggesting that British colonialism invented caste ex nihilo. Rather, this book traces the "career of caste" in colonial and postcolonial India. Parts two and three of the book flesh out the argument to demonstrate how changing imperial concerns produced and contributed to different understandings of caste. It is this history, Dirks suggests in part four of the book, that produced an understanding of caste that continues to shape present-day political debates as postcolonial India struggles with the cultural legacy of colonial constructs. . . .

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