“romila thapar”

The concept of the millennium encompasses a sense of progress and the hope for a better future. Pursuing this notion, the present collection of essays edited by Romila Thapar, and accompanied by her introduction, explores the challenges before twenty-first-century India in its quest for a democratic... More

‘A sober, analytical demonstration of the “various tellings” of the sack of Somnath … [explores] not just the politics of memory, but also how remembrances play on the certitude of facts’—Shahid Amin in Outlook In 1026, Mahmud of Ghazni raided the temple of Somanatha.... More

An exciting and entertaining collection of stories, full of the colour and enchantment of India. These sixteen tales—of heroes and heroines, their adventures, misfortunes and triumphs, of gods and demons, and of animals—have been told to generations of people who have laughed or shed tears over... More

A collection of papers that interprets afresh, known facts about the early period of Indian history up to the end of the first millennium AD. The papers discuss several associated themes such as society and religion, social classification and mobility and the study of regional history. A useful refe... More

A largely rewritten version of a classic history of early India concerned not only with the past but also with the interaction of the past and the present. Romila Thapar’s Penguin History of Early India brings to life many centuries of the Indian past. Dynastic history provides a chronological... More

"Romila Thapar is the most eminent Indian historian. This superb book is not only the basic history of how India came to be and an introduction to how the writing of history takes shape, but also, not the least, a deconstruction of the historical myth and inventions on which is based the present int... More

This classic introduction to India's early history covers the era of the ascendance of Aryan culture, circa 1000 BC, to the coming of the Mughals in AD 1526 and the arrival of the first European trading companies. It gives a brilliant overview of how India's social and economic structure developed,... More

In this study, Romila Thapar argues the importance of understanding and positioning various well-established perspectives on the Indian past in order to arrive at an informed understanding of contemporary situations--such as disputes between Hindus and other Indian communities. It is vitally importa... More

The two lectures within this volume discuss, first the way in which a tradition is created and second, the meaning of 'patronage'.Paperback... More

First published in 1961, this classic work is based largely on the edicts of Asoka, whose policies are analyzed against the background of Mauryan civilization during the third and fourth centuries B.C. The present edition has been thoroughly revised with a new afterword and archaeological site map.F... More