Pious Flames: European Encounters with Sati

by Andrea Major

The volume interprets the influential early nineteenth-century debate on Sati by placing it in the context of a varied tradition of heterogeneous and ambivalent western responses to the rite. By tracing the shifting interpretations of this custom found in European accounts, it demonstrates how
changing representations of Indian society and culture were interwoven with socio-ideological trends and concerns in the observer's own society.

268 pages, Hardcover

First published July 31, 2006

Reviews

[Monalisa Foster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very academic. Interesting how muddy the historical lens can be. You can't trust first-hand accounts, but you also can't trust the scholarship. Extracted some great ideas for my own fictional work (the reason I read it in the first place).