A History of IndiaThis new edition of Burton Stein's classic A History of India builds on the success of the original to provide an updated narrative of the development of Indian society, culture, and politics from 7000 BC to the present.
Part of The Blackwell History of the World Series The goal of this ambitious series is to provide an accessible source of knowledge about the entire human past, for every curious person in every part of the world. It will comprise some two dozen volumes, of which some provide synoptic views of the history of particular regions while others consider the world as a whole during a particular period of time. The volumes are narrative in form, giving balanced attention to social and cultural history (in the broadest sense) as well as to institutional development and political change. Each provides a systematic account of a very large subject, but they are also both imaginative and interpretative. The Series is intended to be accessible to the widest possible readership, and the accessibility of its volumes is matched by the style of presentation and production. |
From inside the book
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... caste, kinship, village economy and politics) and of religion and ritual symbolism'. If anthropology gave Stein, no stranger to controversy, the means by which to attack the errant views of other historians, he was also 'much more ...
... caste than many other historians of India: for him, it is largely subsumed within what he thinks of as 'community'). From the earliest (Harappan) times, stretching back more than two and a half millennia before the Common Era, Stein ...
... caste fishermen, their frequent separation from their wives and pitched battles; the hills were the setting of pre-nuptial courtship and cattle raids. The dry lands, the forest and the cultivated plains, too, had their own associations ...
... caste institutions and agrarian settlement and production. Communities existed in balanced relationships with states ... caste were numerous and often embraced tens of thousands of people who were stratified in various ways, reflecting ...
... caste relations must be situated within some general social context to provide them with useful ideological content rather than an undefined and vague global explanatory privilege. Caste, religion and values were defined by and to a ...
Contents
xiv | |
xxii | |
1 | |
PART II Ancient India | 37 |
PART III Medieval and Early Modern India | 103 |
PART IV Contemporary South Asia | 225 |
NOTES | 421 |
GLOSSARY OF NONENGLISH TERMS | 425 |
FURTHER READING | 430 |
INDEX | 435 |