Making a canon Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Sri Lanka, and the Place of Buddhist Art By Janice Leoshko

"Recognizing how history is an unraveling as much as a construction, Leoshko
disentangles the life and intellectual times of the influential yet enigmatic
Coomaraswamy, showing how his cosmopolitanism was formative for the emerging discipline of international Buddhist art history. Making a Canon is sensitive, informative, balanced, and self-confident-mercifully free of professional jargon and polemic-and, in its own right, an innovative and insightful contribution to the'canon' of Buddhist art history."

Peter Skilling, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok

"Much ink has been spilled over the art philosopher Ananda Coomaraswamy's
precise legacy. By delving into the roots of his intellectual formation in Sri Lanka,
Leoshko compels us to revise many of our commonly held assumptions about the
savant. This refreshingly original work is a must-read for all students of ancient
Indian art.?"

-Partha Mitter, University of Sussex

"With her usual sweeping thoroughness and unprecedented angles of approach,
Leoshko discerns the origins of Coomaraswamy's most influential ideas about
Buddhism, South Asia, art, and religion in his first career as a geologist for the
British Empire in Sri Lanka. Leoshko turns her forensic eye for pattern on new
archival data. Her intellectual history of a visual thinker, told in accessible language, balances respect for his profound legacy with insight into his shortcomings"

Padma Kaimal, Colgate University

"We have long needed more biographical studies of influential individuals who
were not only entangled in the Orientalist' enterprise but who also shaped it.
Undoubtedly, one such figurehead in Buddhist art is Ananda Kentish
Coomaraswamy. Leoshko has now delivered an in-depth and critical study of
Coomaraswamy's scholarly activities in the broad context of contemporary and
present academic discoursea must-read for anybody interested in things
South Asian."

Max Deeg, Cardiff University