Synopses & Reviews
This volume of essays focuses on the fresh set of problems that post-Independence historiography has brought to the fore. It covers areas such as the integration of archaeology with narratives of early Indian history; the trajectories of social change and social formation; the historical position of ideology and its shifts; and, importantly, how ways of communicating knowledge of the past is now increasingly under non-academic fundamentalist onslaught. 'Studying Early India' also investigates the profound impact of colonialism on the study of India's early past, the new methods and premises introduced into India by colonial studies and the variety of departures from traditional, pre-colonial modes of history-writing. This new book on the methodological changes that confront the historian of pre-colonial India will consolidate Professor Chattopadhyaya's reputation as one of the foremost thinkers in his area of ancient and early medieval history.
Synopsis
A focal study of the methodological changes that confront historians of pre-colonial India.
Synopsis
Chronicling the idiocies and occasional heroism of the energetic and star-crossed people who had the misfortune to live in these fractious eras and heralding the survival skills of those who actually made it through, The Lighter Side of the Dark Ages is a
Synopsis
This volume of essays focuses on the fresh set of problems that post-Independence historiography has brought to the fore. It covers areas such as the integration of archaeology with narratives of early Indian history; the trajectories of social change and social formation; the historical position of ideology and its shifts; and, importantly, how ways of communicating knowledge of the past is now increasingly under non-academic fundamentalist onslaught.
About the Author
Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya was educated at Calcutta and Cambridge. He has taught at Burdwan University, Viswabharati and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where he is currently Professor of History. His books include Coins and Currency Systems in South India (Manohar Publishers, 1977), The Making of Early Medieval India (Oxford University Press India, 1994). He has edited several volumes, including the collected essays of DD Kosambi, entitled Combined Methods in Indology and Other Essays (Oxford University Press India, 2002).
Table of Contents
Preface; Introductory: 1. The Study of Early India; Archaeology and Historical Issues: 2. Indian Archaeology and the Epic Traditions; 3. Transition to the Early Historical Phase in the Deccan: A Note; 4. Geographical Perspectives, Cultures Change and Linkages: Some Reflections on Early Punjab; 5. Urban Centres in Early Bengal: Archaeological Perspectives; Texts and Historical issues: 6. The City in Early India: Perspectives from Texts, 7. 'Autonomous Spaces' and the Authority of the State: The Contradiction and Its Resolution in Theory and Practice in Early India; 8. Historical Context of the Early Medieval Temples of North India; 9. 'Reappearance' of Goddess or the Brᾱhmaṇical Mode of Appropriation: Some Early Epigraphic Evidence Bearing on the Goddess Cults; 10. Other, or the Others? Varieties of Difference in Indian Society at the Turn of the First Millennium and Their Historiographical Implications; Historiography and History as Communication: 11. Trends of Research on Ancient Indian Economic History; 12. State ad Economy in North India: Fourth Century to Twelfth Century; 13. Cultural Plurality, Contending Memories and Concerns of Comparative History: Historiography and Pedagogy in Contemporary India; Notes and References