Kumari Jayawardena's new book Erasure of the Euro-Asian creation of Euro-Asian communities in South Asia composed of Burghers, Anglo-Indians and Eurasians, and their vanguard role in the struggles for democratic rights in a colonial situation. Some were 'public intellectuals' who advocated worker and peasant rights, early radicalism, proto-nationalism, secularism and gender equality, many decades before the rise of those leaders now celebrated as 'national heroes'. The author argues that it was not Euro-Asian marginality, but their centrality that was important, for they raised issues and agitated for reforms affecting the whole of society. What is more, they had a utopian vision of a future democratic society, long before conditions were ripe for radical social and political change. In this context the book focuses on the path-breaking efforts of Charles Lorenz, Agnes (Nell) de Silva, Leopold Ludovici, Richard Morgan, Alfred Buultjens and several others, and poses the question about why their contributions have been 'hidden from history'. The author suggests that the obsession with 'purity' of race both in South Asia and Europe led to the erasing of the role of the radical    intelligentsia of mixed European and Asian origin. This book brings these Euro-Asian pioneers and their contributions from the footnotes of history to the main text.