- Hardcover: 346 pages
- Publisher: Cambridge University Press; illustrated edition edition (26 Nov 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0521630274
- ISBN-13: 978-0521630276
- Product Dimensions: 22 x 14.2 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,476,621 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Review
'Lucid, comprehensive and up-to-date, this book will surely establish itself as essential reading for all undergraduate and graduate courses on South Asian history.' C. A. Bayly, University of Cambridge
'The almost impossible task of writing a concise history of the subcontinent covering a period of four centuries is achieved by the Professors Metcalf … This is a great introduction to the subject and the authors are to be congratulated on a most interesting book.' Open History
'[the authors'] account of the early Islamic state and popular misconceptions about religious conversion is so persuasively written that these few introductory pages could serve as an excellent model for secular history writing and should be circulated widely.' The Hindu
'The almost impossible task of writing a concise history of the subcontinent covering a period of four centuries is achieved by the Professors Metcalf … This is a great introduction to the subject and the authors are to be congratulated on a most interesting book.' Open History
'[the authors'] account of the early Islamic state and popular misconceptions about religious conversion is so persuasively written that these few introductory pages could serve as an excellent model for secular history writing and should be circulated widely.' The Hindu
Product Description
Two distinguished historians, Barbara Metcalf and Thomas Metcalf, come together to write a new and accessible account of modern India. The narrative, which charts the history of India from the Mughals, through the colonial encounter and independence, to the present day, challenges imperialist notions of an unchanging and monolithic India bounded by tradition and religious hierarchies. Instead the book reveals a complex society which is constantly transforming and reinventing itself in response to political and social challenges. The book is beautifully composed and richly illustrated. It will be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand India, her turbulent past and her present uncertainties.
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Imagine a time traveller standing in Mughal Delhi, amidst the splendor of the emperor Shah Jahan's (r. 1627-58) elegant, riverside city, in the year 1707 (plate 1.1). Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Imagine a time traveller standing in Mughal Delhi, amidst the splendor of the emperor Shah Jahan's (r. 1627-58) elegant, riverside city, in the year 1707 (plate 1.1). Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a very irritating book. The authors presumably knew that the book was aimed at the lay reader who wants to know something of Indian history in a fairly straightforward and linear way. Yet it reads like a set of lecture notes for undergraduates. It is peppered with hat-doffing to other academics which can hardly interest the non-expert. What are we to make, for example, of sentences such as, 'What Susan Bayly calls the 'paradigmatic case' of kingly social mobility is that of Shivaji Bhonsle...'? Do I care who Bayly is? Does the author mean that Shivaji Bhonsle was the best example of kingly mobility? All this reads like the authors' reminder that they know a lot more about this subject than the ignorant reader. Thoroughly patronising!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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8 reviews
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Refreshing in its correction of bias, but indigestible
6 Jan 2004
Format:Paperback
Most of the concise histories of India commonly assigned to students, such as those by John Keay and by Kulke and Rothermund, have been accused of having to Eurocentric a bias. The Metcalfs, professors at the UCalifornia schools, remedy this slant in their new CONCISE HISTORY OF INDIA by stacking the deck against European colonialism. While this is welcome, it is not without cost. The greatest, perhaps, is that the Metcalfs often seem to great length to vilify some figures or parties while at pains elsewhere to vindicate others . While their biases are understandable (even ones with which I basically agree), this does not make for the most balanced or objective of histories.
More worrying is their utter dryness of tone: it would be hard to imagine anyone being introduced to India (presumably the book's target audience) finding this book anything other than a painful chore. key figures or concepts are introduced basically offhand, then circled back to discuss in greater length much later when you've forgotten who or what they were; very minor figures from the nation's history or culture are often brought forth to comment on the events, but the authors do not clarify whether these commentators are important or central or not. There are good maps, and a useful beginning glossary, but I would have to recommend John Keay's book (for all its European bias) as a much more readable introduction to India than this one.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Not a book for a neophyte
28 Nov 2007
Format:Paperback
Assumes a great deal of previous knowledge and is really not a primer on Indian history. Difficult to follow and make sense of.
18 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Recommended for academic reading lists
9 Feb 2002
Format:Paperback
A Concise History Of India is the collaborative work of Barbara Metcalf (Professor in the Department of History, University of California, Davis) and Thomas Metcalf (Professor of History and Sarah Kailath Professor of India Studies, University of California, Berkeley). Their work focuses on the fundamentally political theme of the imaginative and institutional structures that changed and sustained both the colonial and an independent India. A Concise History Of India documents both the social changes and the rich cultural life that arose from the political structure and evolving social categories and concepts such as "caste", "Hindu", "Muslim", and "India". Earlier chapters cover the period of the Muslim dynasties preceding colonial conquests, and concludes with the dramatic events of the 1990s including economic change, religious nationalism, and India's emergence as a nuclear power. With an informative, scholarly text enhanced with illustrations and quotations taken from historical sources, A Concise History Of India is recommended for academic reading lists and reference collections, as well as the non-specialist general reader with an interest in understanding India's contemporary political and economic relationships with the community of nations in general, and Pakistan in particular.
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