Dimensions
162 x 240 x 31mm
Cultural imperialist or modern-thinker before his time? Opinion is divided on Thomas Macaulay. A child prodigy, he grew up to become one of the most influential figures in colonial India, and is most famous for having introduced the English language as a medium for learning in India. This created a class of westernized Indians who are sometimes derisively referred to as 'Macaulay's children'. Since his formative time serving on the Supreme Council of India in the 1830s Macaulay has inspired both admiration and hostility in India. Without doubt, his policies have had a profound, transformative impact on the subcontinent, but as liberator from caste tyranny, or as colonial interventionist? Zareer Masani has written the first biography of this vastly influential figure, a portrait of a brilliant, eccentric, contradictory man, and the complex times that he lived in. Macaulay is a glimpse into what it felt like to be at the centre of power in a global empire, ruling over hundreds of millions of Indian subjects and shaping the destiny of a subcontinent.
