Yoga in Britain: Stretching Spirituality and Educating Yogis by Suzanne Newcombe (review)

Methodologically drawing from history and sociology, Yoga in Britain is a detailed account of how the practice of yoga was transmitted to Britain in the twentieth century. Suzanne Newcombe's first monograph is an expanded version of her University of Cambridge Ph.D. dissertation that incorporates further material developed through her postdoctoral research undertaken at the University of Vienna. She provides a thorough social history of how yoga appealed primarily to middle-class English women through the efforts of a few significant Indian gurus.

The narrative unfolds through a chronological structure. Starting with the early diffusion of literary texts among London-based elites, it describes the development of yoga in the postwar period through adult education classes, with a spotlight shined on a handful of significant teachers and ending with the institutionalization of professional accreditations and studios offering a range of postural yoga styles. Individual chapters focus on the first television shows broadcasting instruction, the narrowing of yoga to a form of physical therapy, the 1960s counterculture and music scene, and an analysis of the latent spiritual aspects in a tradition that is shown to primarily focus on the physical forms, leaving questions of "belief" a private matter.

Newcombe's theoretical contribution is that yoga as transmitted to, and transformed in, the British context is not a form of cultural appropriation. She makes an anti-essentialist argument, deploying in detail the careers of Indian gurus working in the United Kingdom, such as Sunita Cabral and B. K. S. Iyengar, to demonstrate how yoga flows and changes transnationally. In making this argument, Newcombe follows one of the other main voices in studies of western postural yoga, Mark Singleton. In this reading, yoga in Britain, much like in North America, offers a form of salvation through relaxation (245). Physical and mental well-being are emphasized, and religion is constructed as a private, interior matter, consonant with the secularization of Britain throughout the twentieth century. Newcombe also engages theoretically with the concept of the routinization of charisma from Max Weber, arguing that yoga has institutionalized the charisma of the Indian gurus who transmitted it to Britain. Through this process, British yoga has become a regional tradition in its own right.

Yoga in Britain is packed with meticulous historical details, with fulsome footnotes on every page filling out the specificity of the argument. It is exceptionally strong on content, providing plentiful evidence of how yoga in Britain is a recently constructed tradition of physical culture aimed at improving health and wellbeing. There is also an astute observation that "health" often stands for physical appearance in the context of British yoga, a practice perceived and portrayed as an elixir of youth and beauty. Yoga operates as a way of reinforcing normative physical standards as well as offering a form of relaxation and exercise.

The drawback of such a richly detailed history is that it becomes, at times, rather dry. Newcombe definitely does not sensationalize her subject material, even when recounting the orientalist antics of the Beatles with the Maharishi in the 1960s. The amount of space given to content means that theory is deployed lightly. For those who prefer theory, there may be too much on the minutiae of adult education classes in 1970s Birmingham and too little on how the concepts of routinization and secularization connect with these details.

Yoga in Britain is an excellent account of a regional yoga tradition. It contributes to the rich and growing field of yoga studies, but is perhaps too detailed for students or general readers. Nevertheless, historians of yoga, physical culture, and twentieth century Britain will enjoy its depth and richness.