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Sir William Jones was a brilliant and engaged man of letters and law closely involved with the significant figures of Great Britain, America and India during the American Revolution and the early days of the Raj. To linguists, he is known as the founder of Indo-European linguistics. In the field of South Asian Studies, he is known as one of the early pioneers of Indology, and the founder of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal. His translations of Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit poetry and drama are credited with having a major impact on the English romantic poets. Within the history of English jurisprudence, he is known for a classic treatise on the Law of Bailment, and his translations of key Hindu and Islamic legal treatises such as the Laws of Manu. Continue...  

REVIEWS

 

“The contributors to Objects of Enquiry offer an excellent survey of the spectacular intellectual achievements of his [Sir William Jones’s] decade in India.”---Steve Clark . “Orient knowledge not so pure.”  The Times Literary Supplement (TLS) , March 21, 1997,p 25 

 

“This book is a must for any higher education library that takes seriously Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the British in India, world literature , linguistics or world civilization.”    --- Roy Rauchenberg. Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, vol. 29, no. 3, 1997, pp. 496–497 Continue

 

“The collection also includes authoritative summaries of the state of current scholarship on such matters as Jones’s contributions to linguistics, his originality as a lawyer and his reception in Germany.”--- P. J. Marshall , The English Historical Review, vol. 113, no. 451, 1998, pp. 479–480

Contents

Introduction Kevin R Brine

Chronology of Sir William Jones’s Life

Part One

The Life and Mind of Sir William Jones

1. Oriental Jones: Scholarship, Literature, Multiculturalism and

Humankind

Garland Cannon

Contents continue...

 

About Kevin Brine

Kevin R. Brine, son of the former TIME magazine journalist Ruth Brine, is an independent scholar, author and artist living in Santa Barbara, California. His published books include Finance in America: An Unfinished Story (2017), co–authored with Mary Poovey; The Sword of Judith: Judith Studies across the Disciplines (2010), co-edited with Elena Ciletti and Henrike Lähneman; Objects of Enquiry: The Life, Contributions and Influences of Sir William Jones (1746-1794) (1994), co-edited with Garland Cannon; and, The Porch of the Caryatids: The Drawings, Paintings and Sculptures of Kevin R. Brine (2006).

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