Decadence of a Society

Thomas Metcalf’s scholarly work des­cribes the process by which the taluqdars of Oudh were transformed from rulers of men into modern rentier landlords. He has a small chapter on the origin of the Rajput clans—how they were super­imposed on the local cultivating commu­nity through conquest and inter-clan rivalry. On this issue, however, he has little to add to Richard Fox’s excellent work, Kin, Clan, Raja and Rule. It is in the later sections, particularly those relating to the taluqdars of Oudh on whom the book focusses throughout, except for the hund­red-odd pages on the North-Western Provinces, that Metcalf has much to add to our knowledge.