A Very Old Machine: The Many Origins of the Cinema in India (SUNY series, Horizons of Cinema) - Tapa dura

"Sudhir Mahadevan does the impossible in A Very Old Machine ... He shows how various technologies that emerged in nineteenth-century India shaped its current cinema." -- H-Net Reviews (Jhistory)

"...methodologically and theoretically wide-ranging." -- BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies

"Sudhir Mahadevan's A Very Old Machine is a work of great theoretical sophistication and rigorous historical scholarship. A revisionist and definitive treatment of early Indian film, the book shows how prevailing attitudes toward technology, photography, empire, commodity, and mass culture made the cinema a socially and culturally distinct form in India. Drawing on a wealth of primary research, A Very Old Machine fills many gaps. Anyone who wants to know how Indian cinema became Indian will need to consult this book." -- James Morrison, editor of Hollywood Reborn: Movie Stars of the 1970s