An Imperial Mirage: The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland Within the Branch Society System, c. 1827–1870

This article investigates the place of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (RAS or RAS London) within the branch society system of the Asiatic Societies. Focusing on the first fifty years of the RAS London, and using society reports and publications, it describes the RAS London’s relationship to the branch societies in three dimensions: institutional structure, political economy, and cultures of knowledge. The terminology of ‘branches’ has often led to an assumption that the London-based society acted as a ‘parent’, or ‘trunk’, of a centre-periphery system, or a relationship akin to the power dynamic between home and colony. But, based on the evidence presented here, in fact the the RAS London did not function as a centre within the branch society system. The puzzle is therefore why actors in both London and the East often treated the RAS London as if it did hold a special status among all of the RAS branches.