New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century

British rule, new schooling and religious debate provide the starting points for John Morrison's study of nineteenth-century India. Developed from lectures delivered in Glasgow and Edinburgh, the book examines changes in social customs, political thinking and belief, with particular attention to the educated middle class. Morrison writes as a former college principal in Calcutta who spent twenty years in India, and his argument openly favours British influence and the spread of Christian ideas.

The discussion ranges from caste and women's place in society to political unity and new religious organisations. Morrison considers the diversity of Hindu belief, comparing pantheism, rebirth and Maya with Christian thought. Readers interested in religious history or colonial debates will find both accounts of changing ideas and evidence of the assumptions through which a British missionary interpreted them. His stated perspective is part of what makes the book useful as a historical source.