The Historians of British Art Book Prize Committee is pleased to announce the award for a single-authored book with a subject between 1800–1960 goes to Swati Chattopadhyay, for Small Spaces: Recasting the Architecture of Empire , published by Bloomsbury, 2023.  

From the Committee: In this fascinating, engaging, and experimental book, Swati Chattopadhyay examines a variety of small spaces and objects produced by empire - from the bottlekhana to the verandah, potted plants to homeopathic medicine chests - and the way they proliferated modes of engagement with the world. Chattopadhyay draws on an eclectic array of archival documents including recipe books, trade reports, servant lists, memoirs, and visual artifacts to read the microdynamics of such seemingly insignificant locales in practical and poetic terms, recasting them as sites of emergence in which power, community, and solidarity were negotiated. Her genre-bending mode of narration unfolds a world in which minor places and things fostered habitation, imagination, resistance, and creativity, and while her focus is on British India, she compellingly makes the case for the significance of small spaces and their challenge to master spaces and master narratives in other contexts.