Product Description
This book traces the development and spread of architecture under the Mughal emperors. Professor Asher considers the entire scope of architecture built under the auspices of the imperial Mughals and their subjects. She looks in particular at the role of political and cultural ideology, the relationship between construction in the major cities and in the provinces and the continuing Mughal fascination with paradisical imagery that culminated in the construction of the Taj Mahal. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

An Invaluable Survey of Mughal Architecture!
This book provides a thorough, detailed, and thoughtful analysis of Mughal architecture; it is based on solid scholarly research, yet it is accessible not only to academics, but also to general readers.While many others who have written on this topic have limited themselves to discussions of architectural style, Catherine Asher's book considers Mughal monuments in their cultural and historical context and examines the socio-political roles of the works and their patrons.This book truly is an invaluable survey of Mughal architecture!

important reference work
Still the only thorough examination on Mughal architecture out there!

Definitive, thorough work on the topic
Beginning with a brief discussion of the pre-Mughal Islamic kingdoms, Asher moves chronologically through Mughal architecture, including works patronized by the emperors and those patronized by others but directly implicated in Mughal architecture. This is an excellent volume that masterfully straddles the tasks of presenting a survey of this architecture while exploring the most accepted scholarly interpretations of the works. Well written and with good images (Cambridge volumes only include black and white, unfortunately), this is an excellent foundational text for the study of Mughal architecture. I highly recommend it.

Very unreliable
A revisionist view of the architecture of Mughal India which R. Nath, thedistinguished art-historian, has termed totally misguided (See his essay inPURATATTVA 25, 1994-5). Nath points out numerous errors of interpretationand fact. ... Read more

Product Description
Early India represents a complete rewriting by Romila Thapar of her classic work, A History of India (the first volume in the Penguin History of India series), thirty-five years after it was first published. Thapar has incorporated the vast changes in scholarly understanding and interpretation of Indian history that have occurred during her lifetime to revise the book for a new generation of readers. This new work brings to life thousands of years of history, tracing India's evolution before contact with modern Europe was established: its prehistoric beginnings; the great cities of the Indus civilization; the emergence of mighty dynasties such as the Mauryas, Guptas, and Cholas; the teachings of the Buddha; the creation of heroic epics such as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana; and the creation of regional cultures. Thapar introduces figures from the remarkable visionary ruler Ashoka to other less exemplary figures. In exploring subjects as diverse as marriage, class, art, erotica, and astronomy, Thapar provides an incomparably vivid and nuanced picture of India. Above all, she shows the rich mosaic of diverse kingdoms, landscapes, languages, and beliefs. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (26)

Best book on early Indian history
The book is, no doubt, the best for early indian history. It is a revised and expanded edition of the author's earlier work after a long gap of 35 years, and incorporates all the modern research on early india. The older volume of this work has been a staple for all who wanted to learn anything about ancient india. It has been a required reading in almost all the universities in India. The author is one of the most prominent indian historian and she is an authority on ancient india. Without saying much, it would be sufficient to state that this book is a must for anyone who wants to have a insightful glimpse of ancient indian culture and society. Any reviewer giving less then 5 star does not know much about indian history and historians. And mind you, it is not a 'coffee table' book but a serious read.

Exceptionally Thorough
If you really want to learn about the history of India, then you'll need to examine the historiography of India, that is, the writing of history. This is where Thapar begins this book, by examining the different schools of thought regarding the history of India.
Some think Indian history can be boiled down to the Hindu vs Muslim angle, or the lost Golden Age angle, or the Victorian or Marxist angle. Thapar does not agree.
She considers how these different perspectives have shaped the current understanding of Indian history, and then dives into the history itself. Along the way she considers and weighs different perspectives.
She isn't limited to the Great Man approach, and does a particularly good job of considering different social layers, as well as the ebb and flow of Hindu/Buddhist/Jaina influence.
Her book is not a fast read, and it's not a rousing adventure story, as many good histories are. This is a thoughtful, considered examination of the history of ancient India. If you want knowledge, look here. If you want an adventure, look elsewhere.

Excellent book on Early India
As one that hated History in High School, I found the book to be an excellent review of early India and could not put it down after the first couple of chapters.I was particularly fascinated by the discussion on the evolution of the cast system, touched on virtually throughout the book in varying degree of detail.I now have a much better perspective on the rise and fall of the major kingdoms as well as the invasions that shaped this part of the world.The evolution of society through various stages, e.g. hunter gatherer to urban, is well discussed.

One may find the plethora of italicized terms and names of historical figure a little distracting in the flow of the text, but it still makes for good reading and I heartily recommend it to those not too familiar with early evolution of India.

biased, marxist representation of India
Prof. Romila Thapar is a well known marxist and communist sympathizer from India. Her works have been biased by her marxist ideology and her communist background. Her works on India cannot be taken seriously at all. If you need to read what the Colonial powers wrote about India 200 years ago, and what has been seen repudiated in modern Indian history, then one should read Ms. Thapar's books.

Excellent but...
Having recently finished reading Ms. Thapar's work on Indian History up to AD 1300 (Penguin), I must conclude that it is a very impressive volume. A great deal of research and study must have gone into the creation of such a remarkable opus. I thought it was all-in-all, very respectful of its subject, and especially effective in peeling away centuries of pre- and mis-conceptions imposed by colonial/western commentators. I did not consider the book, in any way, anti-India or anti-Hindu. Anyway, a few points I will make are as follows:
1.Ms. Thapar introduces many remarkable and unusual ideas at the very start of her book (in my opinion, the best part), such as race being a colonial construction. But, she fails to discuss these adequately, and very often allows her thoughts to pass on to oblivion, rather than to a definite conclusion. Maybe, a "definite conclusion" does not exist, at this point-of-time, but a more in-depth approach would have been preferred (even if it added pages to the book).
2.Secondly, the quotes used on the back cover seem to imply, that this book should be primarily taken as rebuttal to farfetched claims made about Indian history, within India today. I don't think this is how this book should be advertised. It is so much more than just that.
3.The material presented deals primarily with the social, and even economic, history of India. There is a great deal to be found on art, literature, science and architecture. But, my impression was off cultural, social and religious history, rather than political history. I understand that kings do not constitute the alpha and omega of history, but Ms. Thapar barely even mentions kings of influence, such as Kanishka, or even travelers and chroniclers, such as Fa-Hein, in any detail.
4.Along that same line, I do not see why it is advertised to be the history of India up to AD 1300. The political history of the thirteenth century is dealt with in maybe 2 lines, if that. I will be very, very curious to see how Ms. Thapar will start volume 2, using a base as inadequate as this!
5.My greatest reservation about Ms. Thapar's work has to do with her presentation of Sanskrit/Hindi words using the Latin alphabet. She follows the colonial tradition of ending almost all the words with the ritual "a". This may be to account for every consonant in Hindi (vyanjan) having a vowel (svar) attached to it. But, she could have made better use of pronunciation aids such as a line overhead to indicate the drawn-out "aa" sound. Some examples were just absurd, such as "pida" for "pidha"/pain. English is not a very phonetic language at all. However, it appears that Ms. Thapar wishes to inhabit the aural world of the colonialists from about 150-200 years ago, but she must realize that by doing so, she is only selling short her otherwise magnificent work.
6.I should also point out that this book is not as beautiful a read as say, Prof. Basham's wonderful "The Wonder That Was India", or the collection of his 7 lectures, compiled into "The Origin and Development of Classical Hinduism". I will still recommend these books, unreservedly, to anyone with an interest in Indian history or culture. But, Ms. Thapar's book deserves to be read carefully as well.
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Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website (GeneralBooksClub.com). You can also preview excerpts of the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Publisher: At the Clarendon press; Publication date: 1908; Subjects: India; History / Asia / General; History / Asia / India ... Read more

Product Description
A History of India explores the principal themes that unify Indian history and offers the reader a sophisticated and accessible view of India's dynamics from ancient times, the Mughal Empire, the British Raj through post-1947 India. The book examines Indian politics, religious beliefs, caste, environment, nationalism, colonialism, and gender, among other issues. The book also discusses long-term economic development, the impact of global trade, and the origins of rural poverty.Peter Robb's clear, fluent narrative explores the interplay between India's empires, regions of rule, customs, and beliefs, and is an ideal starting-point for those with an interest in India's past and present.
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Customer Reviews (5)

Who's the intended audience?
I think the real flaw of this book is not that it's too dry or rote, but that it doesn't seem to be calibrated for any particular audience.

It's no good for someone new to Indian history, because it tends to make very fleeting references to individuals without properly introducing them (often not even giving their full names, or their titles/positions, or their dates of birth or death), and to events without ever explaining what they were. Paragraphs read somewhat like gossip columns, with elliptical references to names or nicknames, and vague hints as to what they might have done.

That kind of writing could be useful, however, in a higher-level book intended for deep scholars of India. If the author intends to make a new analysis of the facts, he doesn't necessarily need to explain who the Mughals were or what happened in the 1857 rebellion. But, as far as I can tell, is in fact trying to write a comprehensive history of India. It seems like he's trying to cram some reference to everything that happened on the Subcontinent into the pages of this slim, slim volume. There just isn't room for it, and the end result is something that doesn't seem of much use to more or less anyone.

Give Me Back My Money!
This book was so bad, so poorly written, and so rote (even comical) in its recitation of dry fact that I feel compelled to write also to the (somewhat favorable) editorial reviewers cited above to find out just what drugs they were on.There is an utter disconnect between the mind-numbing recitation of fact and any attempt on the author's part to offer an expert's unique point of view. Argument could be made that India's vibrant history is one of the most vivid and lively subjects one could possibly choose for a book.That the author has somehow turned that country's amazing tale into such a snorer is truly a towering achievement.This book couldn't even be of interest to pure academics, except maybe as a (highly effective) sleeping aid.It's that dry.It's that bad.

'A History of India ' Comments
This is an insightful book in that it attempts to understand how the
socio-economic cleveages have come to dominate India's poltically complex landscape.This book gives an insight very recent outcomes related to the 2004 national elections in India, especially the last chapters of the book.Concise and deliberate. Jay Pineda, Ph.D., Political Science and Administration, University of California, Santa Barbara.

An Embarrassment of Irrelevance
Robotic recitation of facts not brought to their natural conclusive effects is the worthless waste of paper this volume represents. Peter Robb should be made to reimburse everyone who had the misfortune of buying this snore.

DON'T BUY THIS BOOK
OK so I'm giving you a heads up.This book is the literary equivalent of watching paint dry.Wordy, dry, and sometimes ambiguous, Robb makes India's colorful heritage a monochromatic wasteland. ... Read more

Product Description
The extreme diversity of Indian food culture-including the dizzying array of ingredients and dishes--is made manageable in this groundbreaking reference. India has no national dish or cuisine; however, certain ingredients, dishes, and cooking styles are typical of much of the subcontinent's foodways. There are also common ways of thinking about food. The balanced coverage found herein covers many states ignored by previous food writers. Students will find much of cultural interest here to complement country studies and foodies will discover fresh perspectives. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Superlative Insight into a Culinary Heritage
As the author says, this is not a recipe book. What this book does is that it meshes together extremely well the relationship between a complex culture and its culinary heritage. Replete with historical tid-bits, cultural trivia, origins of different dishes that we have become used to, this is a simply marvelous piece of work that will satisfy even cynics. Whether you are into food or history, this is a must-read!

A valuable addition to any in-depth section on India
Plenty of college-level texts cover Indian history and culture with mention of food - but few focus exclusively on the connections between food and culture as does Colleen Taylor Sen's Food And Culture In India. Using a historical approach, Indian culinary expert Sen provides an analysis of how cultures and cuisines have mixed within India from prehistoric to modern times. There are recipes peppered throughout, but the heart of Food And Culture In India lies in its cultural approach and college-level collections will consider it a valuable addition to any in-depth section on India.
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Product Description
Originally published in 1917.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

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Gyan Pandey's latest book is a compelling examination of the violence that marked the partition of India in 1947, and how the preceding events have been documented. In the process, the author provides a critique of history-writing and nationalist myth-making. He also investigates how local forms of community are established by the way in which violent events are remembered and written about.The book will be of interest to historians of South Asia, to sociologists and to anyone concerned with the Indian subaltern story. ... Read more

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Examining the technological and cultural influences of Europe upon Moghul India in the 16th and 17th centuries, this book employs a variety of sources to counter the assertion that Indian society was historically resistant to change. ... Read more

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Nation-states often shape the boundaries of historical enquiry, and thus silence the very histories that have sutured nations to territorial states. "India" and "Pakistan" were drawn onto maps in the midst of Partition's genocidal violence and one of the largest displacements of people in the twentieth century. Yet this historical specificity of decolonization on the very making of a nationalized cartography of modern South Asia has largely gone unexamined.

In this remarkable study based on more than two years of ethnographic and archival research, Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar argues that the combined interventions of the two postcolonial states were enormously important in shaping these massive displacements. She examines the long, contentious, and ambivalent process of drawing political boundaries and making distinct nation-states in the midst of this historic chaos.

Zamindar crosses political and conceptual boundaries to bring together oral histories with north Indian Muslim families divided between the two cities of Delhi and Karachi with extensive archival research in previously unexamined Urdu newspapers and government records of India and Pakistan. She juxtaposes the experiences of ordinary people against the bureaucratic interventions of both postcolonial states to manage and control refugees and administer refugee property. As a result, she reveals the surprising history of the making of the western Indo-Pak border, one of the most highly surveillanced in the world, which came to be instituted in response to this refugee crisis, in order to construct national difference where it was the most blurred.

In particular, Zamindar examines the "Muslim question" at the heart of Partition. From the margins and silences of national histories, she draws out the resistance, bewilderment, and marginalization of north Indian Muslims as they came to be pushed out and divided by both emergent nation-states. It is here that Zamindar asks us to stretch our understanding of "Partition violence" to include this long, and in some sense ongoing, bureaucratic violence of postcolonial nationhood, and to place Partition at the heart of a twentieth century of border-making and nation-state formation.

Customer Reviews (1)

A core addition to any history collection focusing on Asia
The political boundaries of modern Asia are radically different than those of one hundred years ago. "The Long Partition: And the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories" Is an overview of the modern states of Asia and how they became what they are today. A tale of independence, ancient racial and religious tensions, European interventions, refugees, and more, author Zamindar provides a fascinating narrative of Southern Asia in the twentieth century with an educational and thoughtful read. "The Long Partition" is a core addition to any history collection focusing on Asia.
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Product Description
Order, beauty, richness, restraint and sensuousness describe the essence of the Indian metalwork reproduced in this volume. It was produced for sultans and rajahs during the fabulous Mughal age and derives from the mingling of Hindu and Muslim sensibilities at the heart of Indo-Islamic culture. ... Read more

Product Description
The history of India is an extraordinary epic of a great civilisation. From the early cultures of the Indus through to the glittering power of the Mughal Empire the richness of Indian history has been magnificent. In the modern period India's experience has been equally fascinating. She encountered Western dominance, regained her independence and emerged as one of the most important nations of the world. This compact synthesis presents the grand sweep of Indian history from antiquity to the present. It emphasises the structural pattern of Indian history rather than the chronology of events. The book seeks to explain major political, economic, social and cultural forces which have shaped the history of the Indian subcontinent. First published in hardback in 1986, this new paperback edition has been thoroughly revised and updated in view of recent events and contains an updated bibliography. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

My favorite one-volume history of India
This book is mercifully brief on the deconstruction of literary sources that South Asian area studies are prone to and (again quoting the on-target cover copy) "emphasises and analyses the structural pattern of Indian history." I wish it was longer than 335 pages.

The first 2/3 of the book covers the pre-British period -- a good fraction.While relating more of the military viscitudes than I would like, there is some consideration of social, religious, and economic issues as well as ruling strategies.And the focus on 'great empires' is less than in most Indian histories, which is good since India has spent much more time disunited than united.

Kulke and Rothermund break with the Hindu/Islamic/British periodization of Indian history, breaking periods before the Guptas and before the Mughals.All in all, it is a substantial improvement over Romila Thapar's effort, and a huge improvement over Stanley Wolpert's book.

A Eurocentric view of India
This book is, like most other books on India, a Eurocentric view of the subject. It's shortcomings have been well documented by Dilip Chakrabarti, the archaeology professor at Cambridge University, in his seminal book COLONIAL INDOLOGY.

Nice textbook
This is a heavy tome on a very confusing subject. I was introduced to it in my Civ. class at the UofC. Considering the fact that the imperialist dogs have been the only ones to write an Indian history, much of it isjumbled and false. Kulke and Rothermund do an admirable job of presenting afairly accurate history. Reads like a text book but nevertheless veryreadable.

A concise and beatiful rendition about the history of India
This is a thoughtful and well researched book. It answers some of the questions which bother most Indians are we aryans or dravidians, how did the indus valley civilization dissappear . The manner in which they explainthe myths like the one about the vijayanagar empire tells us about theresearch put in by the authors. I would recommend this book to novices aswell as connosieurs of Indian history ... Read more

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COLLECTION OF FIVE RESEARCH PAPERS BY EMINENT SCHOLARS IN THE FIELDS OF PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, HISTORY AND CULTURE. ... Read more

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Since 1958 one of the most important and widely used texts on civilization in South Asia (now the nation-states of India, Pakstan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal), this classic is now extensively revised, with much new material added. Introductory essays explain the particular settings in which leading Indian thinkers have expressed their ideas about religious, social, political, and economic questions. Brief summaries precede each passage from their writings or sayings.Chapters address the opening of India to the West; Hindu and Muslim social and religious reform movements; the emergence of both moderate and extremist nationalisms; the thought of Mahatma Gandhi; public policies for independent India; Pakistan's formation as an Islamic state, and other topics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

One of the best collections ever
Most of the time I have large problems with huge collections of primary sources such as this too often we get a picture of society from the top down and not the bottom up.Whoever complied this collection did a very good job.There are sources from everywhere the old Mughal Empire, occupying British forces trying to take over India, Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru, even Bose who is most often overlooked.There are even examples from the untouchables activists.Before I started the course for modern south asian history I didn't even know that there were such activists.

Overall-Stephen Hay did his homework.If you have an interest in Modern India this is the book to get.
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Product Description
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1871 edition by Trübner and Co., London. ... Read more

Product Description
Volume: 3Publisher: Cambridge University PressPublication date: 1922Subjects: India -- HistoryNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Product Description
India's ad hoc Arsenal traces the evolution of the domestic dynamics of Indian defense policy since 1947. Chris Smith provides an in-depth analysis of defense policy from 1947 to 1962, a period often ignored by Indian defense analysts, and an evaluation of the performance of the defense industrial base. The author concludes that India's defense policy is designed more to achieve a great power status than to acquire security at an affordable price. ... Read more

Product Description
The Mughal empire was one of the largest centralized states in the premodern world and this volume traces the history of this magnificent empire from its creation in 1526 to its breakup in 1720.Richards stresses the dynamic quality of Mughal territorial expansion, their institutional innovations in land revenue, coinage and military organization, ideological change and the relationship between the emperors and Islam.He also analyzes institutions particular to the Mughal empire, such as the jagir system, and explores Mughal India's links with the early modern world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

concise information about the mughal empire
This book is an excellent source of information aboutthe mughal dynasty. It is written in a chronological manner and hence, easy to read and follow even for the novice user to this subject. The author has stuck to the main theme of thelives of the emperors themselves, their artistic contribution to India and the peoplethat influenced them. The facts about the emperors especially Jahangir, Shahjahan , the Rajput kings, Shivaji's greatness and Shambhaji's misadventures makes it an interesting read. I feel that this book brings forth the facts that are notwidely known or mentioned in school history booksthat brings forth some suprises and hence makes it an interesting read.

An excellent survey marred by too little attention to women
Dr. Richards' otherwise excellent book about the Mughal Empire is marred by his failure to pay very much attention to its women.Gulbadan is mentioned but once, Jodh Bai, Shah Jahan's mother, not at all, Nur Jahanand Mumtaz Mahal only peripherally.Are the Mughal chronicles themselvessimilarly silent about these women?Since Gulbadan wrote her own, one mustsay no. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the first comprehensive and interpretative account of the history of economic growth and change in colonial and post-colonial India. Dr. Tomlinson draws together and expands on the specialist literature dealing with imperialism, development and underdevelopment, the historical processes of change in agriculture, trade and manufacture, and the relations among business, the economy and the state. What emerges is a picture of an economy in which some output growth and technical change occurred both before and after 1947, but in which a broadly based process of development has been constrained by structural and market imperfections. Tomlinson argues that India has thus had an underdeveloped economy, with weak market structures and underdeveloped institutions, which has since 1860 profoundly influenced the social, political and ecological history of South Asia. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great survey of how India has developed
This book provides a thorough account of the colonial affects that India went through to shape is modern economy. The first two chapters are broken up into agricultural development of the period and the industrial development of the period. It clearly shows that there was subsistence agriculture but industrial scale was struggled to be achieved.This book is very fine economic analysis and while having the common methods of econometrics it does not become bogged down in them so it can be understood by those without a mathematical background. If you do have one though you will find some extra goodies within the book.The last chapter looks at how the countries economy developed between the 1920's to the 1970's and focuses on the struggles India faced once it was free of colonial domination.Overall this is a very thorough account and one worth taking a look at if you are interested in colonial India. ... Read more