Indian Travel Writing in the Age of Empire studies a variety of travel narratives by Indian kings, evangelists, statesmen, scholars, merchants, leisure travellers and reformers. It identifies the key modes through which the Indian traveller engaged with Europe and the world-from aesthetic evaluations to cosmopolitan nationalist perceptions, from exoticism to a keen sense of connected and global histories. These modes are constitutive of the identity of the traveller.
The book demonstrates how the Indian traveller defied the prescriptive category of the 'imperial subject' and fashions himself through this multilayered engagement with England, Europe and the world in different identities.