Acknowledgments

The researching and writing of States-in-Waiting has been a transformative, transnational journey, made possible by mentors, teachers, colleagues, interlocutors, institutions, friends, and family on multiple continents.

This book began in the Department of History at Harvard University where I was fortunate to build this project under the guidance of Erez Manela. From day one, Erez encouraged me to produce a connective, multisited, unabashedly international history and he remained present throughout with constant support, careful reading, honest criticism, and consistent curiosity. Erez has been a model teacher and advisor and continues to deliver intellectual strength and challenge, now, as a colleague.

Alongside Erez, there are four people whom I would like to specially acknowledge for the evolving roles they have played in the crafting of States-in-Waiting, from origin to publication: Sanjib Baruah, Elisabeth Leake, Bernard Moore, and Arne Westad, exemplary mentors and colleagues whose scholarship and expertise ground my own and with whom intellectual exchange has always been multidirectional.

At Harvard, from coursework to completion, I benefited from interventions, influence, and the instruction of Sunil Amrith, David Armitage, Sven Beckert, Sugata Bose, John Comaroff, Caroline Elkins, Mary Lewis, and Charles Maier. The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, where Erez with Clare Putnam and Ann Townes created a graduate community with a stimulating atmosphere and strong institutional support, was an ideal home in which to write the dissertation version of States-in-Waiting.

My graduate education was deepened through the comradery of Safia Aidid, Marco Basile, Hardeep Dhillon, Darja Djordjevic, Erin Mosely, Eva Payne, Mircea Raianu, Benjamin Siegel, and Kimberly Wortmann. Financial support came from the Social Science Research Council, Smith Richardson Foundation, New York University’s Center for the US and the Cold War, as well as Harvard’s Weatherhead Center, Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute, Center for American Political Studies, and the Ashford Family through the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. This funding allowed for research in eight countries on four continents, demonstrating the importance of such support for a connective, global history project.

I received generous postdoctoral fellowships from Dartmouth College’s Dickey Center for International Understanding, the Past & Present Society at the Institute of Historical Research in London (IHR), and the Institute for History at Leiden University – communities that helped extend my scholarship and skills while revising States-in-Waiting.

At Dartmouth, Charlotte Bacon helped me formulate a book proposal. Udi Greenberg, Douglas Haynes, Jennifer Miller, and Daryl Press provided key insights in conceptualizing revisions. Panchuree Dube, Jayita Sarkar, and Silke Zoller were warm and perceptive colleagues then and now. Support from the Past & Present Society allowed me to give manuscript talks in India at Ashoka University, The Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (New Delhi), Savitribai Phule Pune University, Tetso College (Dimapur), and The Highland Institute (Kohima). The audiences at these institutions and the colleagues who hosted me – Michael Heneise, Pfokrelo Kapesa, Tanvi Kulkarni, Ruhee Neog, and Srinath Raghavan – provided astute interventions. Especially with pandemic travel restrictions and changing political environments, I am grateful to have benefited from those opportunities.

Outside India, audiences at the University of Vienna, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Columbia University, Yale University, the University of Leeds, ETH Zürich, the University of Sydney, and The Graduate Institute, Geneva, among other venues helped me workshop ideas and chapters. During these interactions, Cemil Aydin, Eric Beverley, Neilash Bose, Paul Chamberlin, Frederic Cooper, Rohit De, Harald Fischer-Tiné, Michael Goebel, Andrew Ivaska, Eva-Maria Muschik, Nico Slate, and Glenda Sluga provided valuable feedback.

At the core of States-in-Waiting are the individuals – nationalists and advocates – whose histories are not always available in official archives because they remain non-state actors. Therefore, the generosity of my research interlocutors was central to my ability to relate and contextualize their histories. I am grateful to Winifred Armstrong, Niketu Iralu, Zapuvise Lhousa, Susan Nghidinwa, and Visier Meyasetsu Sanyü who shared their time, histories, homes, and documents with me.

Under the auspices of the IHR and the Past & Present Society, I held a virtual manuscript workshop during the pandemic shutdowns. Despite the circumstances, Jeffrey Byrne, Sarah Gandee, Emma Hunter, Su Lin Lewis, Simon Stevens, and Carolien Stolte provided keen, generative, and thorough criticism. I am also grateful to the New International Histories of South Asia research network and the intellectual community of Swati Chawla, Bérénice Guyot-Réchard, Jessica Namakkal, and Kalyani Ramnath in considering Southern Asia’s uneven decolonizations.

In the penultimate stages, I was privileged to join a European Research Council–funded team at Leiden University led by Alanna O’Malley, focused on the role of the United Nations in regions we now call the Global South. There, my thinking sharpened on the mechanisms of exclusions and inclusions built into the United Nations as a form of international order.

In the transition to The Ohio State University, I am grateful to my new colleagues, especially Alice Conklin and Geoffrey Parker, whose support and mentorship began immediately upon my arrival. At Ohio State, funding from the Seth Andre Myers Professorship and the Provost’s Office supported final revisions. Throughout, Lucy Rhymer at Cambridge University Press has been an excellent editor, guiding the book through a smooth and constructive review process. The manuscript benefited from two tremendously useful reviews, Leslie Cohen’s editing assistance, and Geoffrey Wallace’s maps. In addition, Ohio State University Libraries’ “Towards an Open Monograph Ecosystem” monograph initiative (TOME@Ohio State) generously provided subvention funds for Open Access publication, making States-in-Waiting significantly more available to readers located in the regions in which the histories narrated in this book took place.

My family has been there for me and my work as States-in-Waiting took me on a literal journey across the globe. Over the course of researching and writing this book, my husband Alan and I have lived and worked together and separately in Leiden and London, New Hampshire and old Hampshire, New York and New Delhi, Cambridge, MA, and Columbus, OH. Much love and appreciation to Alan, for holding down the home front and prioritizing our partnership and scholarship. There from the very beginning to the very end are my parents, Bonnie and Gill, my first mentors, interlocutors, and supporters. This book is dedicated to them.