Based on rarely used archival material, this book sheds new light on diversities related to the princely states such as health policies and practices, gender issues, the states' military contribution or the mechanisms for controlling or integrating the states.

Waltraud Ernst is Reader in History at the University of Southampton, UK. She has published widely on the history of mental illness in South Asia. Her publications include Mad Tales from the Raj (1991), Race, Science and Medicine (co-edited with B.J. Harris, 1999), Plural Medicine, Tradition and Modernity (ed., 2002) and The Normal and the Abnormal (ed., 2006). She is currently completing a book on 'Mental Illness and Colonialism' and engaged in a collaborative research project on 'Colonial Medicine and Indigenous Health Practices in Southern and Eastern Princely States of India, c. 1880-1960'.

Biswamoy Pati is Reader in the Department of History, Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi University, India. His research interests focus on colonial Indian social history. He is the author of Identity, Hegemony, Resistance: Towards a Social History of Conversions in Orissa, 1800-2000 (2003); Situating Social History: Orissa, 1800-1997 (2001); and Resisting Domination: Peasants, Tribals and the National Movement in Orissa, 1920-1950 (1993). He has co-edited Health, Medicine and Empire: Perspectives on Colonial India (with Mark Harrison, 2001; 2006). His edited book, The 1857 Rebellion: Debates in Indian History and Society is due for release in June 2007.

1. People, Princes and Colonialism Waltraud Ernst and Biswamoy Pati 2. Colonial and Postcolonial Historiography and the Princely States: Relations of Power and Rituals of Legitimation Hira Singh 3. 'Cruel, Oriental Despots': Representations in Nineteenth-Century British Colonial Fiction, 1858-1900 Indrani Sen 4. Narcotrafficking, Princely Ingenuity and the Raj: The Subjugation of the Sindia State, c. 1843-44 Amar Farooqui 5. The Agrarian System of the Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir: A Study of Colonial Settlement Policies, 1860-1905 Shakti Kak 6. The Order of Legitimacy: Princely Orissa, 1850-1920 Biswamoy Pati 7. Loyal Feudatories or Depraved Despots? The Deposition of Princes in the Central India Agency, c. 1880-1947 Fiona Groenhout 8. 'Hostages in our Camp': Military Collaboration between Princely India and the British Raj, c. 1880-1920 Samiksha Sehrawat 9. Historicising Debates over Women's Status in Islam: The Case of Nawab Sultan Jahan Begam of Bhopal Siobhan Lambert-Hurley 10. The Maharana and the Bhils: The Eki Movement in Mewar, 1921-22 Hari Sen 11. Women's Hospitals and Midwives in Mysore, 1870-1920: Princely or Colonial Medicine Barbara Ramusack 12. Public Health Administration in Princely Mysore: Tackling the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 T.V. Sekher 13. Border Incidents, Internal Disorder and the Nizam's Claim for an Independent Hyderabad Manjiri Kamat