Tag Archives: History

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.

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;

the Muslim League, and the Communists. The British panicked because the mutiny sparked revolts in other branches of the armed forces. As news of the uprising became known, there were widespread agitations in different parts of the country although the worst affected was Mumbai itself

In the textbooks of modern Indian history, the railways appear almost fleetingly, something like this: introduced in 1853; the guarantee system was so very exploitative for the Indians

Trams were introduced in Calcutta in 1873 and in Bombay a year later in 1874 and in Madras in 1886. Trams remained in place as Calcutta became Kolkata.

The so-called ‘New World Order’ is taking a ‘New Shape’ and Asia is emerging the centre of attention in 21st century. This book is unique in that it covers the subject in detail and is thematically organized into four parts.