Warrior Gentleman – Lionel Caplan

Of late, there has been a growing interest in how non-Western peoples have been and continue to be depicted in the literatures of the West. In anthropology, attention has focused on the range of literary devices employed in ethnographic texts to distance and exoticise the subjects of discourse, and ultimately contribute to their subordination. This study eschews the tendency to regard virtually all depictions of non-Western ‘others’ as amenable to the same kinds of ‘orientalist’ analysis, and argues that the portrayals found in such writings must be examined in their particular historical and political settings. These themes are explored by analysing the voluminous literature by military authors who have written and continue to write about the ‘Gurkhas’, those legendary soldiers from Nepal who have served in Britain’s Imperial and post-Imperial armies for more than two centuries. The author discovers that, instead of exoticising them, the military writers find in their subjects the quintessential virtues of the European officers themselves: the Gurkhas appear as warriors and gentlemen. However, the author does not rest here: utilising a wealth of literary, historical, ethnographic sources and the results of his own fieldwork, he investigates the wider social and cultural contexts in which the European chroniclers of the Gurkhas have been nurtured. This book will appeal to a wide readership, academic and non-academic, such as students of anthropology, literature, cultural studies, military and colonial history, South Asian studies and readers generally interested in militaria.
On the book [The book] discusses an interesting question and makes sensible qualifications of the Orientalist thesis. It is not surprising that it is a Canadian anthropologist who has written a witty and penetrating book, which incidentally tells us a good deal about the British
over two hundred years. It is written with clarity … For all those interested in Nepal or in the representations of other peoples it is a thoughtful analysis.
-A.D.J. Macfarlane, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
Caplan has a shrewd understanding of the literature on Orientalism, and shows a nuanced awareness of the context within which the Gurkha’ was constructed.
-David Omissi, The International History Review
The book creatively and ambitiously enters the domain of literary criticism, politics, anthropology, and cultural history, integrating the diverse strands into a fascinating thesis, well written and skilfully argued.
-Ravina Aggarwal, American Ethnologist
Warrior Gentlemen will be of interest to scholars of colonial and post-colonial institutions, gender and constructions of masculinities, ethnographers of Nepal and South Asia and to historians of the Raj. But its approachable length and style makes it interesting reading for all.
-Mukulika Banerjee, Journal of Anthropological Society of Oxford
Warrior Gentleman – Lionel Caplan