Maharanis: Women of Royal India

For the first time, this volume offers a sizeable collection of photographs of royal women, who lived during the last phase of the erstwhile princely families of India: from the mid 19-th to mid-20th centuries. Significantly, in these photographs can be visualized, to some extent, a documented history of royalty, showing how these beautiful, highly privileged women lived – whether following traditional ways or reinventing the modern. The stimulating essays here focus on the changing roles of women in both the public sphere and in private, highlighting specially how these royal women influenced, shaped and produced political and social change in thier time – a time of cultural interplay between European and Indian ideologies.