Synopses & Reviews
In a second edition of their successful Concise History of Modern India, Barbara Metcalf and Thomas Metcalf explore India's modern history afresh and update the events of the last decade. These include the takeover of Congress from the seemingly entrenched Hindu nationalist party in 2004, India's huge advances in technology and the country's new role as a major player in world affairs. From the days of the Mughals, through the British Empire, and into Independence, the country has been transformed by its institutional structures. It is these institutions which have helped bring about the social, cultural and economic changes that have taken place over the last half century and paved the way for the modern success story. Despite these advances, poverty, social inequality and religious division still fester. In response to these dilemmas, the book grapples with questions of caste and religious identity, and the nature of the Indian nation.
Synopsis
The second edition of the successful Concise History of India, explores India's modern history afresh and updates the events of the last decade. These include the takeover of Congress from the seemingly entrenched Hindu nationalist party in 2004, India's huge advances in technology and the country's new role as a major player in world affairs. Despite these advances, poverty, social inequality and religious division still fester. In response to these dilemmas, the book grapples with questions of caste and religious identity, and the very nature of the Indian nation.
Synopsis
'In a challenging new history of modern India, the authors explore the imaginative and institutional structures that have changed and sustained the country. They also document the social changes and rich cultural life that evolved in interaction with that political structure and vision. The work represents a tour de force.\n
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Synopsis
A new history of modern India challenges traditional interpretations, and explores the politics and cultural life of a unique society.
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).
Table of Contents
1. Sultans, Mughals, and pre-colonial Indian society; 2. Mughal twilight: the emergence of regional states and the East India Company; 3. The East India Company Raj, 1772-1850; 4. Revolt, the modern state, and colonized subjects, 1848-1885; 5. Civil society, colonial constraints, 1885-1919; 6. The crisis of the colonial order: reform, disillusionment, division, 1919-1939; 7. The 1940s: triumph and tragedy; 8. Congress Raj: democracy and development, 1950-1989; 9. Democratic India in the nineties: coalitions, class, community, consumers, and conflict; Epilogue; Biographical notes; Bibliographic essay; Index.