Too Much to Know

A leading scholar in early twentieth-century India, Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870–1958) was knighted in 1929 and became the first Indian historian to gain honorary membership in the American Historical Association. By the end of his lifetime, however, he had been marginalized by the Indian history establishment, as postcolonial historians embraced alternative approaches in the name of democracy and anti-colonialism. The Calling of History examines Sarkar’s career—and poignant obsolescence—as a way into larger questions about the discipline of history and its public life.

Through close readings of more than twelve hundred letters to and from Sarkar along with other archival documents, Dipesh Chakrabarty demonstrates that historians in colonial India formulated the basic concepts and practices of the field via vigorous—and at times bitter and hurtful—debates in the public sphere. He furthermore shows that because of its non-technical nature, the discipline as a whole remains susceptible to pressure from both the public and the academy even today. Methodological debates and the changing reputations of scholars like Sarkar, he argues, must therefore be understood within the specific contexts in which particular histories are written.

Insightful and with far-reaching implications for all historians, The Calling of History offers a valuable look at the double life of history and how tensions between its public and private sides played out in a major scholar’s career.

"Blair's book is the combination of much original research with a new point of view that brings together aspects of the history of learning hitherto considered separately. An excellent and wide-ranging study."—Nancy Siraisi, Hunter College and the Graduate School, City University of New York

"Staggering in its scope and impressive in its erudition, Too Much to Know offers the first general account of both the causes and cures of  'information overload' in Western culture, felt with surprising force for many centuries even before the advent of mass media or the internet. Blair's book is a history of reference books and a reference book in its own right. It is a guide to the working methods of past scholars that will greatly enhance the research of present and future ones.”—William Sherman, The University of York

"There has always been 'too much to know.' In this lively and learned book, Ann Blair shows us how early modern Europeans managed to survive—and even to surf—what they saw as tidal waves of information. Her insightful comparisons, careful attention to the survival of traditional methods, and clear vision of the new culture of passionate curiosity that took place in the Renaissance give her work extraordinary range and depth."—Anthony Grafton, Princeton University

"Fascinating. . . . If you like to know things, even in a world in which there is already too much to know, Blair's book is a mini-library in itself."—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

“Erudite and excellent…I am inclined to bestow a crown of laurels on Blair…for undertaking such a herculean task.”—Paula Findlen, The Nation

"A major work of scholarship. . . . Blair clearly indicates the path that future scholars will need to follow, and she has blazed the first trails very well indeed. . . . Though her epilogue is brief, it raises several questions that all scholars would do well to consider."—Alan Jacobs, Books & Culture: A Christian Review

“[A] landmark study.”—Choice Alan Jacobs - Books and Culture: A Christian Review

“Elegantly conceived…[Blair] expresses confidence in the progress of the long struggle to master information overload.”—Jacob Soll, The New Republic Choice

"With a sure hand, Ann Blair has imposed system on an unusually large mass of data. . . . Blairs approach is original, consistently leading to an innovative synthesis whose strong points are the breadth and concreteness of her presentation."—Angela Nuovo, Renaissance Quarterly Richard Serjeantson - Times Literary Supplement

Selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2011 in the History, Geography and Area Studies category. Angela Nuovo - Renaissance Quarterly

Listen here to Ann Blair's interview on NPR's "Talk of the Nation."

"Too Much to Know is a fascinating account of the traditions, ideals, and practices of early 'information management,' in particular 'the collection and arrangement of textual experts' in the centuries before our own computer age."—Michael Dirda, Book World

"[a] timely book…Too Much to Know is our pre-history: a saga of human search engines before the digital age….With extensive learning, Blair explains how current concerns over information overload are far from new."—James Delbourgo, Times Higher Education Supplement

“Too Much To Know is a book that, by the solidity of its prose and the accurate richness of its scholarship, quietly reveals the industry and ambition that has gone into making it.”—Richard Serjeantson, Times Literary Supplement Jacob Soll - The New Republic

"Ann Blair has achieved quite a scholarly feat in her pursuit to understand the history of information management as exemplified by the early modern Latin reference books. In her work these books are thoroughly described and analyzed as to their driving forces, variety, tools of text organization, impact, and methods used in producing them, while all this is steeped in a rich analysis of crucial diachronic and synchronic contexts. The discussion on early modern note taking in chapter two [...] should be considered a separate contribution to scholarship on the topic. This is also one of the best illustrated books I have reviewed, in teh sense that almost all of the provided illustrations are quite smoothly connected with the argument, reinforcing it rather than simply illustrating it."—Iordan Avramov, Divinatio: Studia Culturologica Series Choice Outstanding Academic Title: History, Geography and Area Studies - Choice

“This is a wonderful book: at once a deep study of what modernity meant to some complex and fascinating Indian intellectuals, a rich analysis of a major scholars assumptions and practices, and a compelling read. Meeting Sarkar will be an unforgettable experience for anyone who shares his, and Chakrabartys, interest in historical research and writing.”

“A brilliant and fascinating study. What is particularly impressive is the humanity of Chakrabartys approach to Sarkar, who fell rapidly out of public favor after his death and was virtually ignored or even disliked by several generations of younger, more nationalistic historians thereafter. Elegant, accessible, and nuanced, The Calling of History will stand as the key text for the understanding of Indian historical writing between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries.”

“Chakrabarty’s writings are always a delight, wide-ranging and unfailingly original. Here, with a focus on Sir Jadunath Sarkar and his interlocutor, G. S. Sardesai, Chakrabarty brilliantly probes the creation of academic history as a discipline and its dialectic with popular conceptions of the past. This is a book that invites specialist and nonspecialist alike to fresh ways of understanding the discipline of history, not only in India but everywhere.”

The flood of information brought to us by advancing technology is often accompanied by a distressing sense of “information overload,” yet this experience is not unique to modern times. In fact, says Ann M. Blair in this intriguing book, the invention of the printing press and the ensuing abundance of books provoked sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European scholars to register complaints very similar to our own. Blair examines methods of information management in ancient and medieval Europe as well as the Islamic world and China, then focuses particular attention on the organization, composition, and reception of Latin reference books in print in early modern Europe. She explores in detail the sophisticated and sometimes idiosyncratic techniques that scholars and readers developed in an era of new technology and exploding information.

Dipesh Chakrabartys eagerly anticipated book examines the politics of history through the career—and in many ways tragic fate—of the distinguished historian Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870-1957). One of the most important scholars in India during the first half of the twentieth century, Sarkar was knighted in 1929 and is still the only Indian historian to have ever been elected an Honorary Fellow of the American Historical Association. He was a universalizing and “scientific” historian, highly influential during much of his career, but, by the end of his lifetime, he became marginalized by the history establishment in India. “History,” Chakrabarty writes, “sometimes plays truant with historians”: by the 1970s—when Chakrabarty himself was a novice historian—Sarkar was almost completely forgotten. Through Sarkars story, Chakrabarty explores the role of historical scholarship in Indias colonial modernity and throws new light on the ways that postcolonial Indian historians embraced a more partisan idea of truth in the name of “democratic” and “anti-colonial” politics.

Dipesh Chakrabarty is the Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor of History and South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books, including Habitations of Modernity: Essays in the Wake of Subaltern Studies, also published by the University of Chicago Press.