2023 SUBSCRIPTION
To commemorate its bicentenary, the Royal Asiatic Society commissioned a limited edition re-issue of Lt.-Col. James Tod’s Annals and Antiquities of Rajast’han, with a new Companion Volume by Norbert Peabody (co-published by the Society and Yale University Press in December 2023).
Tod was a founding member of the Society and its first librarian. While librarian, he completed his Annals (originally published in 1829 and 1832), which was the literary fruit of his 23-year East India Company career, during which he served as the first Political Agent to the Western Rajput States of Rajasthan (1818–22).
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about the re-issue.
The two volumes of his now classic text remain essential reading for anyone interested in the history and culture of Rajasthan and the early colonial encounter in India. The text also became an inspirational source for early Indian freedom fighters, who drew on Tod’s rich narrative of Rajasthan’s history, which he articulated in explicitly nationalist terms, as a call for India’s independence from British rule. The book continues to exert a subtle influence on the national imagination of contemporary India. Tod’s text, thus, remains an indispensable source for understanding not only Rajasthan’s historical past but also important aspects of India’s political present. The accompanying Companion Volume provides the contemporary reader with the necessary background, critical apparatus, and interpretive frames to better understand this monumental, but often misunderstood, work.
The accompanying Companion Volume provides the contemporary reader with the necessary background, critical apparatus, and interpretive frames to better understand this monumental, but often misunderstood, work.
This wonderful edition is available to purchase from Yale University Press for $1000 (£850). Full details can be found on their website.