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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #559631 in Books
• Published on: 2001-12-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 344 pages

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, Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History, 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

About the Author
Barbara D. Metcalf is Professor in the Department of History, University of California, Davis. Her publications include Islamic Revival in British India (1982) and, more recently, Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe (1996). Thomas R. Metcalf is Professor of History and Sarah Kailath Professor of India Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. His publications include Ideologies of the Raj (1994, 1997), and An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain’s Raj (1989).

Customer Reviews

Truly irritating...
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!