“Sujit Sivasaundaram’s Islanded is one of the most important historical studies on Sri Lanka on the early colonial period. It deals with the British advent to Sri Lanka in the context of the country’s recent past and its strategic location in the Indian Ocean. It is not simply about governors and rulers and their doings but rather as the Walrus said, about ‘shoes and ships and sealing-wax’-or to put it differently, about peoples, places, traders, and such things in the island colony. Islanded is an imperative read for those of us interested in the colonial period in Sri Lanka and South Asia in general.”

Gananath Obeyesekere, Princeton University