Traces of India: Photography, Architecture, and the Politics of Representation, 1850–1900 investigates the different cultural roles played by photographs of Indian architecture from the second half of the nineteenth century. Although picturesque views, scientific records of an architectural past, political memorials, travel mementos, and textbook vignettes are the obvious purposes of these images, Traces of India offers a deeper interpretation. Twelve essays show how photographs of architecture reveal the ways in which the practice of image making is aligned with the purposes of power, the presumptions accompanying the encounter with the unfamiliar, and the forces shaping colonial India.

The book is published in conjunction with the 2003 CCA exhibition Traces of India: Photography, Architecture, and the Politics of Representation.

Edited by Maria Antonella Pelizzari
Essays by Julia Ballerini, Stephen Bann, Partha Chatterjee, Janet Dewan, Nicholas B. Dirks, John Falconer, Tapati Guha-Thakurta, Narayani Gupta, Peter H. Hoffenberg, Thomas R. Metcalf, Christopher Pinney, and Maria Antonella Pelizzari
Graphic design by Zab Design and Typography

Published in French as Empreintes de l’Inde : Photographie, architecture et politiques de la représentation, 1880–1900
Co-published in 2003 with the Yale Center for British Art
Hardcover or softcover, 343 pages

Related exhibition: Traces of India: Photography, Architecture, and the Politics of Representation