Nechtman's book explores 18th-century British imperialism
Tillman Nechtman, assistant professor of British and British Imperial History at Skidmore,
is the author of a new book titled Nabobs: Empire and Identity in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2010)."Nabobs" is a term used to describe employees of the East India Company, who would bring the subcontinent's culture with them on their return from India to Britain. To the nabobs, such keepsakes as clothing, foods, jewels, artwork, and animals were a way of narrating their imperial biographies, lives that braided Britain and India together. However, their domestic critics preferred to see Britain as distinct from empire and so saw the nabobs as a dangerous community of people who sought to reverse the currents of imperialism and to bring the empire home.
Nechtman, whose teaching and research interests focus on Britain and its empire, has published widely on the cultural relationships between Britain and India in the 18th century. His book is the first attempt to study the history of the nabobs using contemporary trends in cultural, material and visual history.
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