Haj to Utopia

Book excerpt: “Maia Ramnath's Haj to Utopia is an odyssey through the world of early twentieth-century political radicalism, with a focus on the freedom dreams of those of Indian ancestry who found themselves on the West Coast of the United States. She traces with pointillist care the unruly imaginations fired up by empire's unimaginative rule. To be read and re-read.” —Vijay Prashad, author of The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World "Maia Ramnath’s Haj to Utopia is a thought-provoking study of the Ghadar project for revolutionary change. Going beyond the frame of a nationalist, armed struggle for the overthrow of British rule in India, the author deftly explores and contextualizes the links between Ghadar and a medley of revolutionary groups, and the exotic mix of radical ideas and activities. It provides valuable insight into the peculiar conjunction of nationalist, pan-Islamist, and Marxian discourses which made Ghadar a unique revolutionary adventure." —Harish K. Puri, author Ghadar Movement: Ideology, Organisation and Strategy “Maia Ramnath's book on the Ghadar Movement is an impressive accomplishment: it is at once an in-depth monograph surpassing all previous work on the subject, and a model of how world history should be written. She places the Ghadar in the perspective of pre-nationalist, anti-imperialist struggles, connecting it with other contemporary revolutionary movements around the world. It is empirically rich—Ramnath explores all extant empirical sources and illuminates them with exacting theoretical insights.” —Dilip Basu, University of California, Santa Cruz “Maia Ramnath's meticulous scholarship enables her to effortlessly avoid the old clichés of nationalist historiography and the new clichés of ‘global’ and ‘cosmopolitan’ history. The Haj to Utopia is respectful of detail and context and has a fine feeling for the diverse social histories and intellectual movements in which its characters find themselves.” —Benjamin Zachariah, author of Playing the Nation Game: the Ambiguities of Nationalism in India