Additional information
by Peter Robb (Author)
This book describes how friendship or quasi-friendly behaviour underwrote British life and work in Calcutta before and after 1800, even between patrons and clients, and when personal relations were not amicable. Amid the uncertainties as a new town was created, the parameters of proper behaviour were defined by sociability, trust, and reputation. The book explains friendship's role in credit and debt; in town-development, securing contracts, and managing work; and in early colonial law and administration. It suggests that personal experiences and mores aided the acceptance of formal regulation, and the convenient invention of a 'virtuous' public identity for the imperial British.
Author Biography
Peter Robb is Research Professor of the History of India, and Professor Emeritus, at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, University of London).
