Provincial Metropolis
Provincial Metropolis
Looking for an inspection copy?
This title is not currently available for inspection.
£90.00
GBPThis book tells the story of Patna, in the north Indian region of Bihar, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A century and more earlier, Patna had been an important and populous city, but it came to be seen by many-and is still seen today-as merely part of the mofussil, the provincial hinterland. Despite Patna's real decline, it continued to nurture a vibrant intellectual culture that linked it with cities and towns across northern India and beyond. Urdu literary gatherings and other Islamicate traditions inherited from Mughal times helped animate the networks sustaining institutions like scholarly libraries and satirical newspapers. Meanwhile, English-educated lawyers sought to bring new prominence to their city and region by making Patna the capital of a new province. They succeeded, but as Patna's political influence grew, its distinctive character was diminished. Ultimately, Provincial Metropolis shows, Patna's intellectual and cultural life thrived not despite its provinciality but because of it.
- Examines a provincial city in a neglected region of India
- Combines urban history with cultural and intellectual history
- Draws on extensive archival work in Urdu and other languages
Reviews & endorsements
'David Boyk's insightful and readable study of the city of Patna offers ringing proof that long scholarly neglect of this 'provincial metropolis,' as he aptly names it, is undeserved. Boyk traces the vicissitudes of political control, economic development, and infrastructure change the city experienced, telling Patna's story with an inclusive and original eye. Barbara Metcalf, University of California, Davis
Provincial Metropolis presents a fresh and nuanced framework for interpreting the layered lives of South Asia's 'tier-2' cities. Through a history of modern Patna, David Boyk provides a lively, masterful account of 'the mofussil' as space and idea, revealing the many cities and histories that inhabit urban spaces beyond the subcontinent's metropolises. Drawing on a wealth of English, Hindi, and Urdu sources and changing urban geography, Boyk establishes Patna's emergence in colonial India as a provincial capital, but also as a hub of cosmopolitan intellectual and literary networks, that diminished gradually with the receding of its older Islamicate cultures. This persuasive reassessment of how provincial cities have shaped South Asia's contemporary landscapes is a must-read for everyone interested in colonial modernity, urbanism and regional history. Prachi Deshpande, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta
Product details
September 2025Hardback
9781009510837
240 pages
228 × 152 mm
Not yet published - available from September 2025
Table of Contents
- List of maps
- List of figures
- List of abbreviations
- Note on Translation and Transliteration
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Provinciality in Colonial India
- 1. A Length Without Breadth
- 2. As Though in a Shrine
- 3. Collaborative Wit
- 4. A Sturdy Loyal People
- 5. Patna Capitalized
- Epilogue
- Glossary
- Bibliography.
