This book “Facets of Contemporary History”is a selection of research papers, presented in the International Conference on Contemporary History which was held on 30th and 31st January 2015. This conference was organized by the Department of History, Tourism and Travel Management, Ethiraj College for Women, Chennai. It gives us great pleasure to put together a selection of the papers for the public in the form of a book in the interest of research. Contemporary History refers to the history of the immediate past or that which can be expected to remain in living memory. While there are areas of history which have branched off from contemporary history such as social history and economic history this conference took a very broad look at contemporary events from not just a historical but also a social science perspective. This Book contains 6 Sections namely Political History, Socio-Cultural History, Gender, Economic History, Environment and Tourism. We would like to place on record the Management of the college for the moral and financial support extended in the conduct of the Conference and in the production of the book. Thanks are due to our respected Chairman of the Trust Board, Mr. V.M.Muralidharan for all his support and encouragement. Heartfelt thanks are due to Prof.Dr.Karu. Nagarajan Member Secretary, TAMIL NADU STATE COUNCIL FOR HIGHER EDUCATION for their generous financial Assistance towards the conduct of the Conference. We would be failing in our duty if we do not thank the faculty of the Department of History, Tourism and Travel Management for their support and encouragement in the conduct of the Conference.

Aniruddha Ray retired as Professor of History, from the Department of Islamic History and Culture, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, West Bengal. Well known for his profound interest in historical research, Aniruddha Ray has written extensively about Mughal administration, technology and travelogues; the society and culture of Medieval Bengal; the economic history of the Sultanate and Mughal periods; overseas trade and merchants; and the French East India Company on the basis of a fine blending of his knowledge of Bengali, English and French sources. As a mark of esteem and affection, scholars in India and abroad have joined hands to offer him this volume. The festschrift reflects the range of Aniruddha Ray's interests and influences in some measure. The theme of the present volume includes the contemporary effort within academia to question the traditional representation of Indian history and the attempts in various areas of study to de-centre the writing of history, and to provide an alternative perspective to the history of fifteenth to nineteenth-century India. In this eclectic collection of essays one can see an innovative approach at work, which raises interesting questions when one situates these ideas and the historical evidence within the big picture, as one moves back and forth between the macro-perspective and the micro-history addressed in most of these essays. With eminent historians of the subcontinent contributing to it, The Varied Facets of History: Essays in Honour of Aniruddha Ray throws new light on aspects of Indian history: its sources and their interpretations, the evolution of cultural aspects like languages especially Hindi and Bengali, archaeology, painting, technology, trade and commerce and labour.

This guide should be useful to those studying and researching modern history. International and up to date, it covers sources and controversies in the subject area and includes a section of useful addresses. The volume is divided into three main sections which together comprise a reference work for contemporary historians.

Imprisoned by History: Aspects of Historicized Life offers a controversial analysis, grounded both in philosophical argument and empirical evidence, of what history does in contemporary culture. It endorses and extends the argument that contemporary society is, in historical terms, already historicized, shaped by history – and thus history loses sight of the world, seeing it only as a reflection of its own self-image. By focusing on history as a way of thinking about the world, as a thought-style, this volume delivers a major, decisive, thought-provoking critique of a crucial aspect contemporary culture and the public sphere. By illustrating the ways in which history enforces socially coercive attitudes and forms of behaviour, Martin Davies argues that history is therefore in itself ideological and exists as an instrument of political power. Contending that this ideological function is the "normal" function of professional academic history, he repudiates entirely the conventional view that only biased or "bad" history is ideological. By finding history projecting onto the world and getting reflected back at it the exacting, history-focused thinking and behaviour on which the discipline and the subject rely, he concludes that history’s very "normality" and "objectivity" are inherently compromised and that history works only in terms of its own self-interest.

Today, the environment seems omnipresent in European policy within and beyond the European Union. The idea of a shared European environment, however, has come a long way and is still being contested. Greening Europe focuses on the many ways people have interacted with nature and made it an issue of European concern. The authors ask how notions of Europe mattered in these activities and they expose the many entanglements of activists across the subcontinent who set out to connect and network, and to exchange knowledge, worldviews, and strategies that exceeded their national horizons. Moving beyond human agency, the handbook also highlights the eminent role nature played in both "greening" Europe and making Europe a shared environment.

In Mapping the Role of Intellectuals in Iranian Modern and Contemporary History, Jahanbegloo and contributors examine the role of Iranian intellectuals in the history of Iranian modernity. They trace the contributions of intellectuals in the construction of national identity and the Iranian democratic debate, analyzing how intellectuals balanced indebtedness to the West with the issue of national identity in Iran. Recognizing how intellectual elites became beholden to political powers, the contributors demonstrate the trend that intellectuals often opted for cultural dissent rather than ideological politics.