Imperial Bodies: The Physical Experience of the Raj, c.1800-1947

'I am deeply impressed by the assurance, craftsmanship and historical judgement displayed by Imperial Bodies. It represents the new fusion of colonial history and body history at its very best.' Roy Porter, Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine

'Collingham's work on the physical experience of the British is a remarkable piece of research and analysis. Perhaps the most extraordinary part of the work is her section at the end of the book on the "Social Body" where she describes the new tasks (mostly not undertaken) that confronted the British understanding of their bodies as the moment of Independence of India and Pakistan loomed.' Gene Irschick, University of California at Berkeley

"its ambition is to be applauded" Mark Harrison, University of Oxford

'Lively and insightful.' Times Literary Supplement

'A first-rate read ... What makes Imperial Bodies such fun to delve into is the mass of fascinating social detail that its author has uncovered and assembled; by turns medical, biological, culinary, sartorial, sexual, even scatological, drawn from sources as diverse as advertisements for soft flannels in The Englishman, Chota Sahib's Camp Recipes for Camp People (Madras, 1890) and the Whipping Bill of 1864. In sum, a fine body of work.' The Spectator

'Beautifully written, this history of the body during the Raj is a telling antidote to the traditional imperial histories of the British occupation of India. Weaving analytical and empirical knowledge E.M. Collingham produces a very readable and at times shocking history of British arrogance and ignorance of Indian cultures and histories ... It is a remarkable book, one that reaches well beyond an academic audience to all of us concerned with the trends behind the cultural and social inequalities and confusions with which we continue to struggle.' Development

'Using this evolving parade of the colonial presence, Cambridge academic E.M. Collingham provides a fascinating sweep of Anglo-Indian society and its attitudes to a variety of topics, among them the home, dress, food, cleanliness, sexuality, and servants.' The Natal Witness

"I found this book more illuminating than any previous postcolonial history, both because it sees the world that children saw - which is not far from a world that an observant doctor sees - and because it goes further in accounting for it and explaining its unique mix of lovable and repellant features than anything else I have read." International Journal of Epidemiology

"Readers will find much that is original and of interest in this book." Victorian Studies

"This is a highly readable and lucid account of a relatively new topic in imperial history and historiography and should prove of value to historians as well as scholars in a number of other disciplines." Kleio

"Well researched, clearly argued, and full of rich and interesting detail, this is a book that will be of interest to anthropologists, culture historians and scholars working in the field of colonial and post-colonial studies." Joseph S. Alter, Journal of The Royal Anthropological Institute