This book seeks to frame the “the idea of India” in the American imaginary within a transnational lens that is attentive to global flows of goods, people, and ideas within the circuits of imperial and maritime economies in nineteenth century America (roughly 1780s-1880s). This diverse and interdisciplinary volume – with essays by upcoming as well as established scholars – aims to add to an understanding of the fast changing terrain of economic, political, and cultural life in the US as it emerged from being a British colony to having imperial ambitions of its own on the global stage. The essays trace, variously, the evolution of the changing self-image of a nation embodying a surprisingly cosmopolitan sensibility, open to different cultural values and customs in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century to one that slowly adopted rigid and discriminatory racial and cultural attitudes spawned by the widespread missionary activities of the ABCFM and the fierce economic pulls and pushes of American mercantilism by the end of the nineteenth century. The different uses of India become a way of refining an American national identity.

In Fire Girl, her debut collection of essays, Sayantani Dasgupta examines her personal story against the history, religion, popular culture and mythology of South Asia and her current home in the American West. Praise for Fire Girl These are exquisite essays, filled with savory language spiced just right. Sayantani Dasgupta's generous intelligence and lively curiosity bring alive whole worlds-those of ancient stories and those of daily living, artfully considered. Cultures, languages, religions, landscapes, legacies-this is a writer who contains multitudes. -Peggy Shumaker, Author of Just Breathe Normally Sayantani Dasgupta writes with such keen intelligence and vivid clarity that we can't help be taken in. Lyrical, compassionate, and compelling, these beautiful essays transport us to another world. In Dasgupta's able hands, it is a world we come to recognize as our own. -Kim Barnes, Author of In the Kingdom of Men Sayantani Dasgupta brings together past and present as she considers childhood, violence, safety, family, monsters, goddesses, and the concept of home. These beautiful essays move between India and America, between selves and versions of selves, as Sayantani considers what is real and what is story or indeed, how the two are ever different. The range of landscapes and subjects is as breathtaking as the writing, showing us a powerful mind at work.-Bich Minh Nguyen, Author of Stealing Buddha's Dinner The oscillations in the essays are sometimes gentle vibrations, other times beating drums, encompassing the tension between the home and the world, the past and the present, the brain and the heart. The stories constantly go away and come back and we undulate with them, rippling between delight, sorrow, rage, wonder. -Aurvi Sharma, Winner of the 2015 Gulf Coast Prize in Nonfiction:

In this sweeping work of memoir and commentary, leading cultural critic Paul Chaat Smith illustrates with dry wit and brutal honesty the contradictions of life in "the Indian business." Raised in suburban Maryland and Oklahoma, Smith dove head first into the political radicalism of the 1970s, working with the American Indian Movement until it dissolved into dysfunction and infighting. Afterward he lived in New York, the city of choice for political exiles, and eventually arrived in Washington, D.C., at the newly minted National Museum of the American Indian ("a bad idea whose time has come") as a curator. In his journey from fighting activist to federal employee, Smith tells us he has discovered at least two things: there is no one true representation of the American Indian experience, and even the best of intentions sometimes ends in catastrophe. Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong is a highly entertaining and, at times, searing critique of the deeply disputed role of American Indians in the United States. In "A Place Called Irony," Smith whizzes through his early life, showing us the ironic pop culture signposts that marked this Native American's coming of age in suburbia: "We would order Chinese food and slap a favorite video into the machine--the Grammy Awards or a Reagan press conference--and argue about Cyndi Lauper or who should coach the Knicks." In "Lost in Translation," Smith explores why American Indians are so often misunderstood and misrepresented in today's media: "We're lousy television." In "Every Picture Tells a Story," Smith remembers his Comanche grandfather as he muses on the images of American Indians as "a half-remembered presence, both comforting and dangerous, lurking just below the surface." Smith walks this tightrope between comforting and dangerous, offering unrepentant skepticism and, ultimately, empathy. "This book is called Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong, but it's a book title, folks, not to be taken literally. Of course I don't mean everything, just most things. And 'you' really means we, as in all of us."

"A new novel from the author of Oleander Girl, a novel in stories, built around crucial moments in the lives of 3 generations of women in an Indian/Indian-American Family"--

Offers a fresh and challenging interpretation of India's relationship with the United States over six decades, revealing the complex and distinctive manner in which New Delhi has pursued its interests.