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Conference volumes are not easy to review as the essays do not always cohere to form a clear and lucid narrative. The volume under review, however, does partially better on this count as it reflects on a plethora of writings—travel accounts, professional histories, women’s memoirs—to index the shifts in the way India was represented by Europeans from the late 16th to the mid-19th century. Consequently, while the subject of representing India, in itself, is hardly new, given the number of books that have been written to make sense of the way India was constructed and staged by Europeans, the volume manages to bring fresh perspectives.

The book is a collection of essays on varied themes comprising the concept of India in Alberuni, Hindu chiefs in Sultanate polity, economic theories during the period, economic implications of political disintegration and Shaikh Abdul Quddus Gangohi’s relations with political authorities. Even as these essays focus on the study of thought, polity and economy, they investigate the history of India during the period 1000-1500 CE with particular reference to the Delhi Sultanate. It relates valuable paradigms of the period that gave the Delhi Sultanate a different character notwithstanding its Islamic identity.

It would be fitting to state at the outset that this is an important book. For many reasons, but mostly because it speaks with ease to many audiences. Ângela Barreto Xavier’s convincing narrative comes from an evident expertise in her Portuguese sources as much as from a deep engagement with current debates across themes in Indian and Iberian history.The title encapsulates the two main themes of Portuguese imperialism and Christian conversion in the territory of Goa.

R L Hangloo provides a panoramic view of the medieval period with a focus on periodization, medieval state and legitimacy, Sufism and urbanization.  By drawing upon case studies from Delhi, Deccan and Kashmir, the author discusses the distinctiveness of medieval politics, diplomacy, religion and culture.At the outset, he discusses the methodology adopted by colonial and nationalist historians regarding periodization and points out the problems in usage of the term Muslim in place of medieval. He argues that the usage of the ideological lens to understand the medieval period precludes the possibility of objective understanding of the past and the complexities in the making of medieval society .

Socio-Cultural and Technological Development in Medieval India edited by Ali Athar brings together thirteen articles focusing on the sub-themes: literary sources; state and administration; society and culture; science and technology.Some articles in the book offer insightful discussions, particularly those on 18th century north India. The article by Rohma Javed Rashid, for example, engages with the shahr ashob poetry that used humour, satire and dramatized language to lament the dwindling fortunes of the elite and rise of lower social groups in 18th century Shahjahanabad, meant to convey the decline of the city.

A collection of eight essays which variously analyse the oft under-explored subject of medieval archaeology, the book under review brings to light not only many hitherto unknown structural remains belonging to medieval India such as dyeing vats, dykes and makeshift capitals but also aims to dispel the notion that archaeology as a discipline is only associated with the remote past or with ‘remains dug out from under the earth’ (p. 2).  Khan’s book points to a plethora of structural remains pertaining to medieval India that are lacking in conservation primarily because they do not make the cut for being ‘important’ monuments.