Does patronage always imply a corruption of democratic political processes? Across sixteen essays by historians, political scientists and anthropologists
Patronage as Politics in South Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2014), edited by
Anastasia Piliavsky, explores this question and many more across a range of historical and cultural contexts. The volume's collective drive to ask difficult and theoretically nuanced questions about the role of patronage in South Asia, gives the book a coherence that plays wonderfully against the contributions' eclecticism and diversity.