Talking History

Romila Thapar in Conversation with Ramin Jahanbegloo with the Participation of Neeladri Bhattacharya
Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-0-19-947427-1
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 368 Seiten, Format (B × H): 150 mm x 224 mm, Gewicht: 538 g

Talking History is the eighth title in the OUP series of Ramin Jahanbegloo's conversations with prominent intellectuals who have influenced modern Indian thought. This volume excavates the life and career of Romila Thapar as a historian and a public intellectual. Her multifaceted work, from her early research on Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas to her classic studies on the lineage system in India, her questioning of the dominant paradigms of historians from both the colonial era and from the more recent nationalist era to the role of a public intellectual in India, have made her one of the most frequently read, discussed, and cited historians of our times.

Across the six parts of the book, Jahanbegloo probes her to talk about some of the central issues of history writing in India, such as the function of a historian, conflict with Hindu fundamentalism, authority in historical research, oriental despotism, and the polymorphous structure of Hinduism, as also about her life.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Jahanbegloo, Ramin

Thapar, Romila

Bhattacharya, Neeladri

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein Historiographie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Introduction: Thinking History in Critical Times

- Part I: From Punjab to London

- Chapter I: A Happy Half-Way

- Chapter II: Religions and Storytelling

- Chapter III: A Secular Environment

- Chapter IV: Talking Politics

- Chapter V: Following Gandhi

- Chapter VI: Facing Hindu Fundamentalism

- Chapter VII: Living with the British

- Chapter VIII: Reading Novels

- Chapter IX: Discovering the Indian Classics

- Chapter X: A Nehruvian Ideal

- Chapter XI: A Radical-Minded Student

- Chapter XII: Reading Philosophy

- Chapter XIII: Hollywood or Bollywood?

- Chapter XIV: Living in London in the 1950s

- Chapter XV: Becoming a Historian

- Chapter XVI: Return to India

- Chapter XVII: Marx and Marxism

- Chapter XVIII: Stalinism and After

- Chapter XIX: Teaching at JNU

- Part II: The Function of the Historian

- Chapter I: Reading the Past

- Chapter II: Is There a Pattern in History?

- Chapter III: What Is a Historical Fact?

- Chapter IV: Objectivity in the Work of a Historian

- Chapter V: The Sources in History

- Chapter VI: Is History a Single Voice?

- Chapter VII: Is Historical Narrative a Rational System?

- Chapter VIII: Historians and Philosophy of History

- Chapter XIX: What Is Oral History?

- Chapter X: What Is Historicity?

- Chapter XI: A Two Way Process

- Chapter XII: Which Authority Festures in Historical Research?

- Chapter XIII: History and the Greeks

- Chapter XIV: History and Epic

- Part III: Modern Writing of Early Indian History

- Chapter I: The Orientalists and the Utilitarians

- Chapter II: What Is Oriental Despotism?

- Chapter III: Kingship or Empire

- Chapter IV: India without the British

- Chapter V: Culture of Civilization?

- Chapter VI: The Idea of the Indian Nation

- Chapter VII: Tradition and Culture in India

- Chapter VIII: Tradition and Non-Violence

- Chapter IX: Going beyond the Blurriness

- Chapter X: Memory and Forgetfulness

- Part IV: Lineage and Kingship

- Chapter I: Ashoka: Between the Ethical and the Political

- Chapter II: Ashoka and Gandhi

- Chapter III: Ashoka and Marxist Historians

- Chapter IV: History and Charismatic Literature

- Chapter V: Attitude towards Spiritualism and Mysticism

- Chapter VI: A Rationalist Historian

- Chapter VII: Communal Ideologies in India

- Chapter VIII: The Role of Archaeology and Anthropology

- Chapter IX: Blood, Kinship and Lineage

- Chapter X: History and Political Ideologies

- Chapter XI: The Ideas of Hindusim

- Chapter XII: The Ideologues of Hindu Nationalism

- Part V: The Historian and the Epic

- Chapter I: Looking at the Epic

- Chapter II: The Historicity of the Epic

- Chapter III: The Two Levels of Temporality

- Chapter IV: Concepts of Time

- Chapter V: The Moderns and the Concept of Inevitability

- Chapter VI: Linearity and Evolution

- Chapter VII: The Heroes and Exile

- Chapter VIII: Retaliation and Forgiveness

- Chapter IX: Tragic Drama in India

- Chapter X: Machiavelli and the Arthashastra

- Part VI: Shakuntala and Somanatha

- Chapter I: The Historian's Impulse

- Chapter II: Somanatha and Communal Historical Writing

- Chapter III: The Rashomon Effect

- Chapter IV: Why Is Somanatha important?

- Chapter V: The Centrality of the Event

- Chapter VI: Is There an Indian Marxism?

- Chapter VII: New Schools of History Writing

- Chapter VIII: Looking at the Past

- About the Author

Über Autor(innen)

Ramin Jahanbegloo is professor and vice dean and executive director, Mahatma Gandhi Centre for Peace Studies, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana.

Romila Thapar is a renowned historian whose area of study is ancient India. She is the professor emerita at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Neeladri Bhattacharya is a professor at the Centre for Historical Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has researched and published on the making of the colonial rural order, custom, law and modernity, colonial power and discourse, and practices of history writing. His publications include Essays on the Commercialization of Indian Agriculture (1986, co-edited), Labouring Histories: Agrarian Labour and Colonialism (2004), and numerous articles on colonialism and agrarian society, and the representation of history.