H. A. I. Goonetileke, a “renaissance man” if ever there was one in Sri Lanka, serves up a critical review in 1976 of a study drafted in 1969/70 …. addressing Michael Roberts, Facets of Modern Ceylon History through the Letters of Jeronis Pieris, Colombo, Hansa Publishers Ltd., 1975, pp. ii, 108, 16 plates, 2 charts, map. See the brief Bibliographical NOTE at the end for further elaboration. Goonetileke’s review was presented in the Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities, Vol II, No. 1, December 1976, pp. 170-73.
Hännädigē Jeronis Pieris
Traditional servitors of the Muse Clio have trod for the most part the straight and narrow path of documentary rectitude in their attempt to chart the changing tides of history. In recent times this time-honoured path has been criss-crossed by a new wave of techniques which use tools from sociology, economics, demography, political science, anthropology and law to fashion ever new forms of historical writing, as well as leaning increasingly on hitherto neglected documentary sources from various strata of the evolving socio-political frame. Since Dr. Michael Roberts, one of the most distinguished of the new generation of Sri Lankan historians, has shown already, both in his published and unpublished work, that he recognises the significance of this multidisciplinary and more expansive way in which the study of history should proceed, one takes up Facets of Modern Ceylon history through the letters of Jeronis Pieris with great expectations. But what emerges from the delayed entrance of the twenty- three paltry and light-weight letters of a God-fearing young Low-Country Sinhalese arrack renter in Kandyan territory in the middle of the nineteenth century sadly belies the scope and dimensions of what the stage-setting title promises.
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