Experience Modernity. Indian Accounts of European Travel 1858–1991

The author analyses Indian travel writing in Bengali language, concentrating on the descriptions of travels around Europe in colonial times and immediately after. The relations from these journeys are a fascinating record of experiencing a world known from British school textbooks and European books popularized in India as a result of colonial subordination. They also show a difficult confrontation of ideas with reality and prove how overwhelmingly colonialism influenced shaping the image of Europe and the reception of European ideas among Indians.