03635cam a2200409 i 4500 20874226 20260508161317.0 190222s2019 nyuab b s001 0 eng c 2019003656 9781438477398 20874226 LBSOR/DLC eng LBSOR rda DLC pcc a-ii--- HD1516.I5 B49 2019 Y31:7:7 Q8 (RR) CRL Bhattacharya, Neeladri author. 1238420 The great agrarian conquest : the colonial reshaping of a rural world Albany : State University of New York Press, 2018. xix, 522 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm text rdacontent unmediated rdamedia volume rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references and index. Introduction: The great agrarian conquest -- I. Governing thr rural -- Masculine paternalism and colonial governance -- II. The agrarian imaginary -- How villages were found -- In search of tenures -- The power of categories -- Codifying custom -- III. From code to practice -- Remembered pasts -- Beyond the code -- Fear of the fragment -- IV. From the "Primitive" to the modern. Colonising the commons -- The promise of modernity, antinomies of development -- Epilogue: The last ride -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index. "This book examines how, over colonial times, the diverse practices and customs of an existing rural universe--with its many forms of livelihood--were reshaped to create a new agrarian world of settled farming. While focusing on Punjab, this path breaking analysis offers a broad argument about the workings of colonial power: the fantasy of imperialism, it says, is to make the universe afresh. Such radical change, Bhattacharya shows, is as much conceptual as material. Agrarian colonization was a process of creating spaces that conformed to the demands of colonial rule. It entailed establishing a regime of categories--tenancies, tenures, properties, habitations--and a framework of laws that made the change possible. Agrarian colonization was in this sense a deep conquest. Colonialism, the book suggests, has the power to revisualize and reorder social relations and bonds of community. It alters the world radically, even when it seeks to preserve elements of the old. The changes it brings about are simultaneously cultural, discursive, legal, linguistic, spatial, social, and economic. Moving from intent to action, concepts to practices, legal enactments to court battles, official discourses to folklore, this book explores the conflicted and dialogic nature of a transformative process. By analyzing this great conquest, and the often-silent ways in which it unfolds, the book asks every historian to rethink the practice of writing agrarian history and reflect on the larger issues of doing history"-- Provided by publisher. Agricultural colonies India Punjab History. 1238894 Agriculture and state India Punjab History. 1238895 Social change India Punjab History. 1238896 Villages India Punjab History. 1238897 Punjab (India) Colonization. 1238898 Punjab (India) Rural conditions. 1238899 7 cbc orignew 1 ecip 20 y-gencatlg CC REF Y31:7:7 Q8 (RR) 1850964 1850964 0 0 CC 0 0 CRL CRL 2026-05-04 Orient Blackswan Private Limited 850.00 000906 & 2026-03-23 0 Y31:7:7 Q8 CL1926704 2026-05-04 11:36:00 2026-05-04 REF