The essays in New Mansions for Music: Performance, Pedagogy and Criticism look at one of the most ancient and rigorous classical musical traditions of India, the Karnatik music system, and the kind of changes it underwent once it was relocated from traditional spaces of temples and salons to the public domain. Nineteenth-century Madras led the way in the transformation that Karnatik music underwent as it encountered the forces of modernization and standardization. This study also contributes to our understanding of the experience of modernity in India through the prism of music. The role of Madras city as patron and custodian of the performing arts, especially classical music offers an invaluable perspective on the larger processes of modernization in India. As the title suggests, the areas of classical music, which were most influenced by these developments were pedagogy or modes of musical transmission, performance conventions and criticism or music appreciation. Once the urban elite demanded the widening of the teaching of classical music, traditional modes of music instruction underwent a major change involving a breakdown of the gurushishya parampara or the tradition wherein the teacher imparted knowledge to a chosen few. Caste and kinship were important determining factors for the selection of these shishyas or students, but in modern institutions like the universities these boundaries had to be demolished. Simultaneously, the public staging of music brought the performer into a new relationship with his audience, especially as the art form became subject to validation and criticism by the newly emerging music critic. In an immensely readable book peppered with anecdotes and conversations with leading musicians and critics of the day, as well as humorous visual representations, part caricature, part satirical, the author describes a rapidly changing society and its new look in early twentieth century Madras.

This book looks at the life and music of Veena Dhanammal (1866-1938), considered the embodiment of 'classicism' in Karnatik music. It locates her art within the cultural, social and intellectual milieu she inhabited, allowing readers to track the changing musical landscape of southern India, as a process of urbanisation - beginning in the late nineteenth century - resulted in Karnatik music's movement from a ritual and courtly location to a modern, secular form of entertainment in the city space.

This book looks at the life and music of Veena Dhanammal (1866a "1938), considered the embodiment of a ~classicisma (TM) in Karnatik music. It locates her art within the cultural, social and intellectual milieu she inhabited, allowing readers to track the changing musical landscape of southern India, as a process of urbanisation a " beginning in the late nineteenth century a " resulted in Karnatik musica (TM)s movement from a ritual and courtly location to a modern, secular form of entertainment in the city space.

In a modern global historical context, scholars have often regarded piracy as an essentially European concept which was inappropriately applied by the expanding European powers to the rest of the world, mainly for the purpose of furthering colonial forms of domination in the economic, political, military, legal and cultural spheres. By contrast, this edited volume highlights the relevance of both European and non-European understandings of piracy to the development of global maritime security and freedom of navigation. It explores the significance of 'legal posturing' on the part of those accused of piracy, as well as the existence of non-European laws and regulations regarding piracy and related forms of maritime violence in the early modern era. The authors in Piracy in World History highlight cases from various parts of the early-modern world, thereby explaining piracy as a global phenomenon.

The book focuses on the phenomenon of predation during the closing decades of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century in Indias western littoral. It attempts a material history of piracy, locating its antecedents, its social context, and its ramifications at a crucial time of political transition. Alongside, it revisits the idea of piracy as a category that was largely constituted by regimes of power and regulation in the high seas and in littoral waters. In the case of India and the Indian Ocean, the pirate was a particularly maligned figure thanks to the discourse put forward by the English East Company. The book unravels the making of such a discourse, while remaining attentive to fissures and tensions within the discourse.