"On the specificity and relevance of Sri Lanka in the history of modern South Asia" by Eric Meyer, Inalco, Paris

This unpublished paper was read at the International conference on Sri Lanka, Peradeniya, 23-25 February 1998. There has been and still is an 'insular' tendency among historians of Sri Lanka (especially those writing on the 'modern' period), who often take it for granted that historical developments in the island are strongly specific and little connected with those of the rest of South Asia, except in the remote past or during short periods usually depicted as traumatic. In that respect his..