Dirks, Nicholas Autobiography of an Archive: A Scholars Passage to India

“Institutions activate ideological changes most often and most effectively when they do so subtly, masking seduction as mutuality, resistance as complicity, and change as continuity.” (Dirks 2015:106-7) Nicholas Dirks has stitched together a set of essays that comprises many of the topics he has grappled with from the years of his graduate studies in the 1970s to his contemporary tenure as the Chancellor of UC Berkeley. The 14 chapters include a medley of lectures and articles, some of which represent the genesis of his books Castes of Mind, The Hollow Crown, and The Scandal of Empire. This book will be of particular interest to scholars and students of South Asia, as well as those interested in the intersections of history and anthropology. Dirks presents a fascinating set of ruminations on historical and contemporary forms of knowledge/power that, although different in content, have clear commonalities in form. The broad historical periods the book material is situated amidst are the rise and decline of the British Empire and the subsequent rise of the U.S. Empire. Within these historical episodes, Dirks presents snapshots of different periods of knowledge production: the emergence of the colonial census in the late 19th century, writings about caste at the turn of the 20th century, and others discussed below. In Part I (“Autobiography”), Dirks recounts his experiences pursuing research in colonial archives and his efforts to work at the intersection of anthropology and history. Dirks describes realizing through his archival research that the “primary” archival material was always already infused by historical discourse and political motives, in some cases, as with the writings of the British surveyor-general Colin Mackenzie, in surprisingly selfreflective ways. While critical of the archives, Dirks makes the case through