Mapping an Empire: The Geographical Construction of British India . By Matthew H. Edney. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. xxi, 458 pp. $35.00 (cloth).
Mapping an Empire: The Geographical Construction of British India . By Matthew H. Edney. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. xxi, 458 pp. $35.00 (cloth).
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绘制帝国地图：英属印度的地理构造。
DOI：
10.2307/2658897
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发表时间：
1998
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
S. Ramaswamy
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文献类型：
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作者：
S. Ramaswamy
门卫就像他在书中编织了战争奖杯的概念一样，例如，在“图像被推翻”一章中他第一次讨论索马纳特神庙，随后在精彩的章节中讨论了这座神庙的许多重建，其中一个是最近的。事实上，战利品的概念，即使不是战争，至少是占领，也可以延伸到他对早期殖民印度艺术收藏的讨论中。继戴维斯之后，我在这里谨慎地使用了“艺术”这个词，因为它涉及到宗教形象向审美商品的转变。作为商品的图像概念在最后一章“仪式自我的丧失与恢复”中得到了特别探讨，其中他追溯了来自帕图尔的青铜湿婆神图像的生命。这张照片的传记不仅包括为识别伦敦收藏家手中的一件特定作品与被盗作品的法律努力，以及它从帕图尔到伦敦的路线（不断增加的付款），还包括西瓦自己在法庭上的一天。西瓦（Siva）假定了戴维斯所谓的法人人格，成为原告，对 Nataraja 图像拥有合法权利。戴维斯的写作风格在学术书籍中并不常见。这在一定程度上是因为其中几个章节最初是在专业会议上进行演讲，因此人们会感受到一种口头的声音和一种大声批判性思维的感觉。但还有更多，因为主题经常在书中出现，将七章的主题巧妙地联系在一起。因此，构成本书焦点的图像即使不是严格的线性传记，似乎也具有持续的生命力。
door guardian much as he weaves the notion of trophies of war through the book, for example, in his first discussion of the Somanatha temple in the chapter, "Images Overthrown," and subsequently in the excellent chapter discussing this temple's many reconstructions, one of them quite recent. In fact, the notion of trophies, if not of war at least of occupation, might be extended to his discussion of early colonial Indian art collections. Following Davis, I here use the word art advisedly, for it involves the transformation of a religious image to an aesthetic commodity. The notion of image as commodity is particularly probed in the final chapter, "Loss and Recovery of Ritual Self," in which he traces the life of a bronze SivaNataraja image from Pathur. The biography of this image includes not only the legal effort to identify a particular piece in the hands of a London collector with the stolen piece and the route it took (with ever-increasing payments) from Pathur to London, but even Siva's own day in court. Siva assumed what Davis calls a juristic personality to become a plaintiff with a legitimate claim to the Nataraja image. Davis writes with an elegance not common in scholarly books. This comes in part from the fact that several of the chapters had an initial life as talks at professional meetings, so one feels a spoken voice and a sense of critical thinking aloud. But there is more, for themes resurface regularly in the book, neatly tying together the topics of the seven chapters. And, as a result, images that form the book's focus appear to have continuing lives, if not a strictly linear biography.