With this stimulating book, Seema Alavi adds to her impressive and wide-ranging body of scholarship on South Asian history of the colonial period. Muslim Cosmopolitanism in the Age of Empire contributes to at least three productive approaches that have emerged in historical work in recent years. One is to transcend the restrictive limitations imposed by nation-state boundaries in favor of recognizing the importance of cultural and physical connections across borders. As Alavi points out, other scholars recently have studied the interconnectedness of the British Empire; yet others have productively taken up the larger Indian Ocean area. She, in contrast, takes as her arena what she deftly coins “the imperial assemblage,” not only the British Empire, but also the Ottoman along with minor extensions to the Russian Empire. These connections were decisively facilitated in the late nineteenth century by such innovations as steam travel and inexpensive print facilities, as well as...

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