Book Presentation  State-Building and Legitimization In The Himalayas: Entangled History of the Gorkhā State in the Overlong 19th Century

The Himalayan region has long been marginalized in political, media, and academic discourse, often dismissed as an isolated frontier. Compounding this marginalization, South Asian and Himalayan historiography has remained constrained by methodological nationalism. Stefan Lüder dismantles these reductive perspectives by centering the Himalayas as a dynamic hub of global and regional entanglement. He does that through analyzing the Gorkhā state’s ruling elites’ multifaceted strategies of legitimizing power. His work reveals how these efforts were not insular but deeply interwoven with cross-regional exchanges, challenging the myth of Himalayan isolation. By foregrounding the Himalayas’ longue durée entanglements with neighboring polities and global forces, Lüder redefines the Himalayan region as a crucible of interconnected histories, bridging global, regional, and national scales. 

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