History
Early Indian texts, especially those that are part of the vast corpus in Sanskrit, have acquired a sadly paradoxical status in recent years. On the one hand, many serious scholars tend to view them with suspicion, if not contempt.
Minority Pasts investigates local history and politics of Rampur, the last Muslim-ruled Princely State in colonial United Provinces, and studies with remarkable ease and competence aspects of political, economic, socio-cultural and affective history of Rampur and the Rampuris in the South Asian subcontinent across borders in the post-1857 period.
It is usually overlooked while talking about India of the latter half of the eighteenth century that the Mughal court continued to have some political relevance till at least the turn of the century.
This is precisely what Ghosh has done. Eight years after the publication of Flood of Fire we have a book in which he has written about the key concerns that shaped the novels comprising the trilogy. As the narrative progressed from the first novel Sea of Poppies (2008)
James Fergusson’s Tree and Serpent Worship, published in 1868, got many things wrong but one thing right. It drew attention to the abundance of trees and snakes in the sculptures at Sanchi and Amaravati.
To locate the occupations, religious preferences and mobility of the ordinary man in early India, a source of utmost importance were the donative records.
Instead of getting into the long-drawn ‘Iron Age and Social Change’ debate, she makes a case for bringing up the different aspects of iron production and their relationship with the social formations in the context of early India.
One quickly turns the pages of the book to find out what is being ‘revisited’ to which we get an immediate answer that the book has intended to revisit ‘lesser-known history of Deccan’s social and cultural vibrancies’ (p. xvii). At the same time, at the end of their Introduction to Emperors Saints and People
This is an unusual and innovative book that captures the history of Velha Goa through the lens of archeology as method, and urbanism as the heuristic category for understanding the Portuguese city as it was designed and constructed since the 16th century.
2023
The British state, in order to establish its dominance around the globe, used a range of instruments of power. Among others, two closely linked instruments of power were the ‘Prize Laws’ and the ‘Prize Courts’.
Susmita Mukherjee’s book under reviewexamines the historical and sociological processes that resulted in the concentration of women doctors in India in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
Fali Nariman, now aged 94, is among the last of a generation of legendary lawyers whose ranks included the likes of Nani Palkhivala, Soli Sorabjee, Ram Jethmalani, and K Parasaran, and who effectively laid down the foundations of India’s postcolonial legal development.
While Sair-ul Manazil was the first attempt to chronicle the city, its structures, its people and their culture and weaving its past with the present, Reminiscences of Imperial Delhi was a compilation of the pictures, paintings and brief texts on certain people and structures of Delhi as it was in 1844
Each of the twenty-five chapters is an essay written by Frykenberg, one of the most important economic historians of our times, during a career spanning over six decades. Besides economic issues, the articles in the present volume also deliberate upon facets pertaining to social,
The author informs that these sculptures are housed in different places—homes, courts, schools, private collections and police stations.
Ashoka has not been spared either of these, this intervention, at once scholarly and empathetic, is timely. Also, as the first volume in a series titled Indian Lives, it raises expectations, which are more than met.
Expectedly, there is much that the reader will find familiar.
A very important aspect associated with an aesthetic tradition is the making of the art pieces. A related question is thus based on the choice of materials which the sculptors used. The third section entitled ‘Interrogating Artist’s Choices’,
History as a modern discipline has its highly developed protocols. Specialists spend years learning the craft of the historian—an extremely sophisticated craft practiced in easily recognizable ways all over the world. We have been witnessing attempts to undermine the discipline with assertions that disregard its protocols.
This book is an attempt to give an overview of the history of Muslim civilization from its inception to the present times. It is based on the author’s notes prepared for teaching his students at the high school level in the US. Starting with the time of Prophet Muhammad when monotheism challenged the existing belief system of the Arabs, he talks of the rise of Islam from the Arabian Peninsula.
The book starts with a brief introduction outlining the theme in seven well-structured chapters. The first chapter apart from analysing the origins of pan-Islamic sentiments in India traces the circumstances under which the Khilafat movement emerged;