Film City Urbanism in India
Hyderabad, from Princely City to Global City ,1890-2000

The book is about the reciprocal relationship between cinema and the city as two institutions which co-constitute each other.

C. Yamini Krishna (Author)

9781009583824, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 September 2025

250 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2.2 cm, 0.56 kg

'Film City Urbanism adeptly combines two burgeoning fields – South Asian urban history and a New Cinema History oriented to social and material questions. Krishna demonstrates the mutual constitution of city and cinema – not in the familiar mode of scene analysis, but by examining film as industry. Setting the study in Hyderabad, capital of a Muslim-ruled state until its 1948 incorporation into India, allows Krishna to highlight the city's integration through film infrastructure into imperial, regional, national, and global circuits. Grounded in a distinctive South Asian city, Krishna's book brings into focus globally salient questions of citizenship and language politics, labour and migration, spectacular capitalism and tourism.' Eric Beverley, author of Hyderabad, British India, and the World: Muslim Networks and Minor Sovereignty, c. 1850–1950

The book is about the reciprocal relationship between cinema and the city as two institutions which co-constitute each other while fashioning the socio-political currents of the region. It interrogates imperial, postcolonial, socio-cultural, and economic imprints as captured, introduced, and left behind by politics of cinema, in the site of Hyderabad. It traverses through the makings and remakings of Hyderabad as princely city, linguistic capital city, and global city, studied through capital, labour, and organization of the film industry. It brings together diverse, and rich historical material to narrate the social history of Hyderabad, over a hundred years.

Dedication
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. City, Cinema, World
2. The Making of Modern Hyderabad
3. In transition
4. Capital and Labour
5. City and capital
6. Film City
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Asian history [HBJF]