This volume offers a collection of several of Professor Habib's essays, providing an insightful interpretation of the main currents in Indian history.

Originally written for seminars and lectures held under the auspices of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

A distillation of the historian’s finest writings on modern Indian historical themes. For the past forty years or more, the most influential, respected, and popular scholar of modern Indian history has been Sumit Sarkar. When his first monograph, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal 1903–1908, appeared in 1973 it soon became obvious that the book represented a paradigm shift within its genre. As Dipesh Chakrabarty put it when the work was republished in 2010: “Very few monographs, if any, have ever rivalled the meticulous research and the thick description that characterized this book, or the lucidity of its exposition and the persuasive power of its overall argument.” Ten years later, Sarkar published Modern India 1885–1947, a textbook for advanced students and teachers. Its synthesis and critique of everything significant that had been written about the period was seen as monumental, lucid, and the fashioning of a new way of looking at colonialism and nationalism. Sarkar, however, changed the face not only of modern Indian history monographs and textbooks, he also radically altered the capacity of the historical essay. As Beethoven stretched the sonata form beyond earlier conceivable limits, Sarkar can be said to have expanded the academic essay. In his hands, the shorter form becomes in miniature both monograph and textbook. The present collection, which reproduces many of Sarkar’s finest writings, shows an intellectually scintillating, skeptical-Marxist mind at its sharpest. “ here we see Sarkar grappling with his intellectual heritage, negotiating his own location within the new Marxist nationalist history of the period. Working within its frame, he pushes at the boundaries, disturbing neat classificatory schemes, resisting false historical comparisons, problematizing categories, and questioning linear narratives. The desire to explore contrary experiences and contradictory pictures is part of his process of questioning.” — Neeladri Bhattacharya

This volume brings together, for the first time, several of Professor Habib's essays, representing three decades of scholarship and providing an insightful interpretation of the main currents in Indian history from the standpoint of Marxist historiography.

History as a social science is arguably more self-reflective than associated disciplines in that family. Other social scientists seem to see little reason to look beyond the paradigm they are developing in the present times. Historians on the other hand, tend to depend on the cumulative process of the development of their craft and the fund of accumulated knowledge. Yet, while this is acknowledged in the practice of research, Historiography in itself as a subject of study has rarely found its place in the syllabi of Indian universities. Knowledge of Historiography is taken for granted when a scholar plunges into research. In an attempt to address this lacuna, the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) has planned a series of volumes on Historiography comprising articles by subject specialists commissioned by the ICHR. The first volume in the series, Approaches to History: Essays in Indian Historiography brings to the readers the first fruits of that endeavour. While the essays encompass areas of research presently at the frontiers of new research, scholars will also find the bibliographies accompanying the essays of significant appeal.

This Volume Of Essays Examines Some Of The More Important And Problematic Aspects Of The Swadeshi Movement, Such As The Relationship Between Terrorism And Non-Violent Resistance. Also Examined Here Are Foreign Influences On Bengal Terrorism And The Nature Of Bengali `Religious Nationalism`.

Essays in Modern Indian Economic History is part of a three-volume set, comprising representative articles of Indian History Congress Proceedings (1935-85). The essays in this volume provide an overview of the continuities and changes in the historians' approach to the economic aspects of 'modern' Indian history. In the agenda of economic historians, the problems uppermost have been the policies of the colonial state, the impact of metropolitan capitalism on colonial trade and industry, and in particular the evolution of land revenue systems in various regions. At the same time, many of the continuities from the pre-colonial period to the so-called modern period in terms of social institutions, political structures, and organization of production have engaged historians. This collection indicates how historical research in modern economic history has pushed beyond the study of colonial economic policies per se, into the processes internal to the economy and society under the impact of these policies--resulting in the development of a culturally and socially sensitive economic history. Re-issued in a revised form to synchronize with the Platinum Jubilee Celebrations of the Indian History Congress, the essays in this volume are accompanied by a new Preface and an Introduction that highlight the changing contours of emphasis, shifting focus/es and methodologies and projections of research, held under the aegis of the Indian History Congress.