Among the legacies of the colonial encounter are any number of contemporary
'mixed-race' populations, descendants of the offspring of sexual unions
involving European men (colonial officials, traders, etc.) and local women.
These groups invite serious scholarly attention because they not only challenge
notions of a rigid divide between colonizer and colonized, but beg a host of
questions about continuities and transformations in the postcolonial world. This
book concerns one such group, the Eurasians of India, or Anglo-Indians as they
came to be designated. Caplan presents an historicized ethnography of their
contemporary lives as these relate both to the colonial past and to conditions
in the present. In particular,