Peter James MarshallCBEFRHistSFBA (born 1933) is a British historian known for his work on the
British Empire, particularly the activities of
British East India Company servants in 18th-century Bengal,[1] and also the history of British involvement in North America during the same period.[2] He is not to be confused with his contemporary, the other P. J. Marshall, who chronicled the history of public transport in the British Isles.
Between 1965 and 1978, he served as a Member of the Editorial Committee for The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, and between 1975 and 1981 he was Editor of The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History.[4] He sat on the History Working Group for National Curriculum in England in 1989 and 1990. In 1987 he was appointed Vice-President of the
Royal Historical Society, serving as President between 1997 and 2001. He has been a notable benefactor to the Society.
Marshall presents a revisionist interpretation, rejecting the view that the prosperity of Mughal Bengal gave way to poverty and anarchy in the colonial period. He instead argues that the British takeover did not mark any sharp break with the past. After 1765, British control was delegated largely through regional rulers and was sustained by a generally prosperous economy for the rest of the 18th century. Marshall also notes that the British raised revenue through local tax administrators and kept the old Mughal rates of taxation. His interpretation of colonial Bengal, at least until c. 1820, is one in which the British were not in full control, but instead were actors in what was primarily an Indian play, and in which their ability to keep power depended upon excellent co-operation with Indian elites. Marshall admits that much of his interpretation is still contested by many historians.[5]
Selected publications
The Impeachment of Warren Hastings, (Oxford, 1965)
The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, vol. V, (Cambridge, 1965) (Assistant Editor)
The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, vol. VII, (Cambridge, 1968) (Assistant Editor)
East Indian Fortunes: The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century, (Oxford, 1976)
The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, vol. X, (Cambridge, 1978) (Assistant Editor)
The Great Map of Mankind: British Perceptions of the World in the Age of Enlightenment, (London, 1982) (Co-editor with G. Williams)
A
Junior Research Fellowship bearing his name, and jointly administered by the Royal Historical Society and the
Institute of Historical Research at the University of London, where he is an honorary Fellow,[9] is awarded annually to a doctoral student in history.[10]
Bibliography
Marshall, P. J., East Indian Fortunes: The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century, (Oxford, 1976), pp. 284
Marshall, P. J.,The Making and Unmaking of Empires: Britain, India and America c. 1750 – 1783, (Oxford, 2005), pp. 398
^Louis, William Roger; Low, Alaine M.; Winks, Robin W.; Marshall, Peter James (14 May 2004).
Historiography.
ISBN9780199246809. Retrieved 4 March 2015.