Poverty and the Quest for Life: Spiritual and Material Striving in Rural India (2015), by Bhrigupati Singh first and foremost bears the proof of a successful ethnography. Besides detailed ethnographic data and archival material, it is his constant reflection on himself and his experiences that I have found as one of the most impressive and interesting aspects of the book.
Colone James Tod was unique in being one of the intellectual fathers of both, a benevolent Orientalism, and a romantic, militarized, Indian nationalism, especially the variety clothed in Rajput valour and pride that continues to inspire people across caste, religion and region.
Centestations and Accommodations is a discussion on the social, economic and political history of the Mewat region of north India spanning the period thirteenth to the early eighteenth centuries.
This is an important historical publication rendered in an engaging narrative style that will entertain the reader. More importantly, it also brings into focus, true to its title, an aspect of a vital historical period otherwise unattended to in such detail.
Bhairabi Prasad Sahu’s book on society and culture in Post-Mauryan India is a companion volume to Volume 6 which deals with the political and economic history of the same period.
This is an important book at a significant time. It makes some incisive points on how the Anglophone world has refused to, and continues to ignore, the contributions of ‘far-reaching philosophical systems’ that arose outside the so-called western traditions.