A Memoir of Central India

Published in London in 1823, Malcolm's history of Malwa in central India remained the authoritative text for over a century.

John Malcolm was present at the British conquest of Malwa, a region of central India previously little known to Europeans, in 1818. Malcolm studied the region's geology, agriculture and ruling families. First published in Calcutta in 1821, his reports were revised for publication in two volumes in London in 1823.Sir John Malcolm (1769–1833) was a soldier and diplomat in British India and Persia. He returned to India on the eve of the British conquest of Malwa, a region of central India previously little known to Europeans, in 1818. Malcolm studied the region's geology, its agriculture and the history of its ruling families in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His reports were first published in Calcutta in 1821, and were revised and expanded for publication in two volumes in London in 1823. Based on interviews with native inhabitants and oral testimonies, Malcolm's work was the leading authority on Malwa until the 1930s, and remains valuable for its first-hand account of nineteenth-century Malwa's politics, culture and society. The most important chapter of Volume 2 contains Malcolm's recommendations for the future of British rule in Malwa. The volume also has an extensive appendix of over 200 pages of primary texts.