Book Cover; Title; Contents; Contributors; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; Introduction: the power of the past; The generation of communal identities; The people of the lion: the Sinhala identity and ideology in history and historiography; Historical images in the British period; The politics of the Tamil past; Nationalist rhetoric and local practice: the fate of the village community in Kukulewa; A compound of many histories: the many pasts of an east coast Tamil community; Rural awakenings: grassroots development and the cultivation of a national past in rural Sri Lanka
J.R. Jayewardene: righteousness and realpolitikNewspaper nationalism: Sinhala identity as historical discourse; Afterword: scared places, violent spaces; Index
Summary
Sheds fresh light on the historical roots of the ethnic crisis in the country. Its interest extends beyond contemporary politics into history, anthropology and development studies
