Mapping Nirad C Chaudhuri’s Ideological Position: A Critical Analysis of The Continent of Circe

Abstract

As Chaudhuri defines the book, The Continent of Circe as an “essay” on the people of India. It is an effort by the author to understand and explain India and its people. His purpose in writing the book “. . . is to describe the peoples of India in their natural groupings, both ethnic and cultural, and analyze their collective personality in the light of the historical evolution which has formed it” (Chaudhuri 38). As an essay, the book mixes the subjective and the empirical, though the former happens to be predominant.