Apostolate of St. Thomas in India


Book Description

Apostolate of St. Thomas in India traces the history of the missionary works of St. Thomas and the origins of Christianity in the subcontinent. It delves into the genesis of the St. Thomas Christians, a community whose various works including their historical documents in Syriac and Malayalam were destroyed by the Portuguese colonizers at the Synod of Diamper (1599) fearing their heretical contents. The chapters here revisit these themes from different perspectives, examining a variety of archaeological and literary sources and using tools of historical research and a multi-disciplinary methodology to question the existing overarching historical narratives about the St. Thomas Christians. This allows readers to retrieve a history that was previously erased as well as understand the alterity of the community's past outside of the convention created by the Euro-centric 'myth of historicity'. The volume is a reservoir for scholars working on the origin of Christianity in South Asia in general and for those looking for a nuanced understanding of the origin of St. Thomas Christians in particular.







A History of Moravian Missions


Book Description

This is an original reprinting of the official Moravian missions history with new maps detailing their numerous missionary journeys. This printing is the first of three volumes, and covers the initial years of Moravian missions. Get beyond the myth and pulpit folklore about the Moravians and see what God really did in using this group of believers to bring the Gospel to unreached people groups around the world in the 17th and 18th centuries. This band of refugees, displaced by Catholic persecutions in their own land, found safety with the benevolent Count Zinzendorf in Herrnhut, Germany. After the group experienced a true Holy Spirit revival, Count Zinzendorf found in them a zealous band of dedicated missionaries that carried the Gospel across the world while those back home maintained an unbroken, 24/7 prayer meeting for a hundred years. Just as remarkable is that the Moravians went out with no steady financial support. They were 'tentmakers' in most places they went to enable the rapid spread of workers without reliance on a large home financial support network. The Moravians are among the most significant, and least known, influencers of the modern missions movement that began in the 1700s and continues to today. John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church, witnessed the Moravians during his fateful voyage across the Atlantic, later attributing Moravian influence to his own conversion. William Carey, considered the father of modern missions and a pioneer in bringing the Gospel to India, attributed his initial impetus for missions after reading about the activity of the Moravians. How did God use a band of largely uneducated craftsman and farmers to reach the world? You should read this definitive history of the Moravians to find out!







The Dravidian Movement


Book Description

The foundations of politics in Tamil Nadu today are rooted in the rising consciousness and various organizations of what may be broadly termed "the Dravidian Movement" of the late nineteenth century and first decades of the twentieth century. This book focuses on the emergence of a new awareness of Tamil identity though a range of organizations for Dravidian uplift such as the Non-Brahmin Movement, the South Indian Liberal Federation (popularly known as the Justice Party), the Self-Respect Movement, the Dravida Kazhagam (DK), and its dynamic off-shoot, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). The most prominent leaders of the Dravidian Movement were E. V. Ramaswamy Naicker, known as Periyar, "Great Sage," and C. N. Annadurai—Anna—who in 1967 was to become Chief Minister of Madras State. Today there are many books on Tamil politics, but until the 1960s no book had addressed the movement that was to become the dominant force in the political life of Tamil Nadu today. It was a young American, Robert L. Hardgrave, Jr., in 1960 who took up the project to portray the Dravidian Movement. With several months in Madras, he met leaders of the DMK and attended a number of conferences, and he collected all the pamphlets and papers he could find on the movement, many going back to the 1930s. As a graduate student at the University of Chicago, he brought this together for his Master’s degree thesis, completed in 1962. It was published as a book, The Dravidian Movement, in Bombay in 1965. Long out-of-print, the pioneering volume is again available in this new reprint edition.







New Dictionary of South African Biography


Book Description

This series of publications aims to fill the gaps in our history, highlighting in particular the significant roles played by black leaders form all walks of life.







The Location of Culture


Book Description

In Location of Culture, Homi Bhabha sets out the conceptual imperative and political consistency of the post-colonial intellectual project. In a provocative series of essays, Bhabha explains why the post-colonial critique has altered forever the landscape of postmodern discourse. Location of Cultureexamines the displacement of the colonist's ligitimizing cultural authority; the margins of Western "civility" put under colonial stress; the complex cultural and political boundaries which exist between the spheres of gender, race, class, and sexuality; the place of language, psychic affect, and narrative discourse in the construction of social authority and cultural identity. Bhabha investigates a diverse range of texts in a bold attempt to specify the moment and the place of both colonial and post-colonial perspectives. He discusses writers such as Toni Morrison, Nadine Gordimer, and Salman Rushdie; historical documents such as those on the Indian Mutiny and by missionaries; race riots and nationhood; and he builds on the work of important cultural theorists such as Frantz Fanon and Edward Said.