Somak Biswas is Junior Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research, London. He works on the intersections of South Asia, Britain, imperial and global history. He is also a member of the Global History and Culture Centre, University of Warwick.

• List of Figures; Acknowledgements; Section I. Introduction: Indophilia and Its Wider Worlds, 1890–1940; 1. Languages of Longing: Indian Gurus, Western Disciples and the Politics of Letter-Writing; Section II. 2. Home in the World: Indophiles and the Ashram; 3. India, Indophiles and Indenture: Cultural Politics of a Transnational Discourse, 1911–1931; Section III. 4. Practices of Discipleship: Vivekananda and His Women Disciples, 1890–1910; 5. Vedanta and Its Variables: The Politics of a 'World Religion', 1890–1910; Epilogue: What Settles After; Bibliography; Index.

'Biswas explores both the social geographies and the cultural practices of radical devotees in pursuit of earthly transcendence and revolutionary politics, producing a lively account of utopian communities stitched together by spiritual desire and preserved in a rich and vivid archive of letters that testify to the power of affective politics in the making of global history.' Antoinette Burton, University of Illinois