Parting Gifts of Empire: Palestine and India at the Dawn of Decolonization
Published by the University of California Press in 2025, my book is about decolonization and its forms of knowledge. It is a history of largely unknown and undigested intellectuals from West and South Asia (philologists, historians, librarians, etc.) and their efforts to produce institutions for knowledge production amidst the incomplete political decolonizations of the twentieth century. I examine the content and conditions of thought in the Third World, attending both to ideas of translation, solidarity, liberation, and geography, alongside the parties, journals, conferences, and departments that were the products and vessels of those ideas. The kindred partitions of British Palestine and British India sit at the center of the book. A South Asian edition of the book was published by Sanctum Books (New Delhi) in 2026.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Decolonization and Its Forms of Knowledge
Chapter 1: Empire
Chapter 2: Islam
Chapter 3: Asia
Chapter 4: Nonalignment
Chapter 5: Area
Epilogue