The age of nationalisms : competing visions -- Citizenship and nation-building after independence : South Asian experiences -- The state in South Asia : a biography -- Migration at home and abroad : South Asian diasporas -- The household, marriage and the family -- Fasting, feasting, gluttony and starvation : consumption, caste and the politics of food in South Asia -- Leisure, twentieth-century style.

Taking the partitions of British India rather than the two world wars as the century's inflection points, Joya Chatterji examines how issues of nationalism, internal and external migration, and technological innovation contributed to South Asia's tumultuous twentieth century. Chatterji weaves together elements of her autobiography and family history; stories of such legendary figures as Tagore, Jinnah, Gandhi, and Nehru; and, in particular, the accounts of the many who were left behind and marginalized in relentless nation-building projects. Chatterji examines the countries' mirroring patterns in state building, social and cultural life, modes of leisure, consumption, and oppression, and offers a timely course correction to our understanding of the dynamics of South Asian history. It reframes the events of the twentieth century that are continuing to play out in the present day.