Ian Copland - School of Historical Studies Staff

Personal History

Ian Copland researches on modern India and Pakistan and on comparative colonialism. The focus of his current work is on Hindu-Muslim communal relations in late colonial India with particular reference to the ambiguous role played by the monarchical governments of the erstwhile "princely" states in mediating communal conflict - a role which in some ways anticipates that played in contemporary India by the Hinduphile Bharatiya Janata Party.

Current Research

Information currently unavailable .

Major Publications

Ian is the author of The Burden Of Empire: Perspectives On Imperialism and Colonialism (1990), and The Princes Of India in the End-Game Of Empire, 1917-1947 (1997). Among his more recent articles are "The Further Shores of Partition: Ethnic Cleansing in Rajasthan, 1947 ", in Past and Present (1998), and "The Political Geography of Religious Conflict: Towards An Explanantion Of the Relative Infrequency Of Communal Riots in the Indian Princely States", in The International Journal Of Punjabi Studies (2000).

Book Chapters
'From Communitas to Communalism: Evolving Muslim loyalties in princely North India', Colonialism, Modernity, and Religious Identities, 2008.
'The imprint of the past: reflections on regime change with particular reference to 'Middle India' c.1947-50', From the colonial to the postcolonial: India and Pakistan in transition, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2007, pp. 287-308

Refereed Journal Articles
'The limits of hegemony: elite responses to nineteenth-century imperial and missionary acculturation strategies in India', Comparative Studies in Society and History, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2007, pp. 637-665
'Christianity as an arm of Empire: the ambiguous case of India under the company, c. 1813-1858', The Historical Journal, Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 1025-1054

Areas of Research & Supervision

British Imperial history, in particular the history of indirect rule in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; comparative colonialism; post-colonialism; modern South Asian history.

Teaching