Theft of an Idol

Text and Context in the Representation of Collective Violence

Paul R. Brass

 

6.25 x 9.5 inches, 314pp. 1998

ISBN : 9788170461180

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Adopting different modes- narrator, detective, and social scientist—Brass treats incidents of collective violence arising initially out of common ocurrences such as a drunken brawl, the rape of a girl, and the theft of an idol, and demonstrates how some incidents remain localized while others are fit into broader frameworks of meaning, thereby becoming useful for upholders of dominant ideologies.

Paul R.Brass is Professor of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Washington. He is the author of many books, most recently Riots and Pogroms; Ethnicity and Nationalism: Theory and Comparison; and the Politics of India since Independence (2nd edition), a volume of the New Cambridge History of India.

 

Postcolonial Studies
Culture Studies