Negotiating Power and Constructing the Nation: Engineering in Sri Lanka by Bandura Dilleepa Witharana

Negotiating Power and Constructing the Nation is the first comprehensive attempt to discuss Sri Lankan engineering in relation to Sinhala nationalism. By selecting three very different engineering sites, this book expands the meaning of "engineering' and revisits the popular claim by the Sinhalese people "engineering is in our blood"- to show how and why this

perception has been constructed, modified, and revised over time. The author sheds new light on a growing field of study with his precise exploration of technology and incisive socio-political investigation of Sri Lanka over the past century.

This book is a highly original and provocative examination of Sinhala nationalism in Sri Lanka, seen from the unexpected perspective of the history of engineering. The result is full of fascinating new insights, from the tale of Sri Lanka's ‘lost' industrial future, as imagined in the 1930s, to the recent recovery of a radically new sense of its past - a past based on the mythical figure of Ravana, now refigured as a heroic engineer of the nation. Witharana guides his readers with skill and charm into often completely new perspectives on the Sri Lankan past.

-Jonathan Spencer

Tambapanni Academic Publisher.