This book, based on a translation of Antoine Polier's Persian letters, provides a refreshingly new perspective to the debate on the birth of colonialism and orientalism in the Indian context. A comprehensive introduction by two renowned experts in the field charts out Polier's formative years and life on the Indian sub-continent. It locates the collection of letters in the wider social and cultural millieux and also reconstructs the variety of social layers and networks that Polier's letters offer us. It brings out the complexities of the texture of Indo-Persian culture nurtured during Mughal rule which was being realigned into new categories of caste and religion by British orientalists and administrators.