A History of India Volume 2

From the Break-Up of the Mughal Empire to the End of Colonial Rule
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-1-83765-145-0
Verlag: Boydell & Brewer

Buch, Englisch, 514 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 138 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 730 g

Comprehensive and in-depth exploration of one of the oldest civilisations in the world, revealing the dynamic changes of its society, the links to the rest of the world and the underlying forces that led to India's significant role on today's global stage.

This is the second of a three-volume history of India, characterized by three main arguments: (a) Indian history has been crucially conditioned by the manifold and two-way connections linking the Indian subcontinent to the remainder of the world; (b) Indian society was never static, but always crisscrossed by powerful currents of change; (c) colonialism caused both the crystallization of a 'traditional' society - which, in that shape, had never really existed before - and, at the same time, the rise of modernity.

This volume examines the history of India from the collapse of the Mughal Empire to the end of colonialism in 1947. It analyses the features of the most important pre-colonial Indian states and the role played by the British colonialism in their destruction or reduction to political irrelevance. Second, the volume highlights the contradictory role of the colonial order in freezing a previously evolving society, causing the coming into being of a 'traditional India' and, at the same time, somewhat unwittingly, triggering the rise of a new modern India. Furthermore, the volume analyses the role of India in supporting the British Empire both economically and militarily, and how the implementation of the liberal economic policy by the colonial rulers resulted in the loss of millions of Indian lives. Finally, the volume closely examines the rise and evolution of Indian nationalism, the reasons that forced the British to end their rule, and, last but not least, the causes of partition and the responsibilities of the parties and political leaders involved.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Torri, Michelguglielmo

Fachgebiete

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

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Maps
Preface to the Indian Edition
Preface to the Original Italian Edition

1. The Triumph of Colonialism and the Birth of 'Traditional India'

2. The Triumph of Colonialism and the Birth of 'Modern India'

3. The Decline of Colonialism and the Rise of Nationalism

4. India during the Second World War: Wasting Opportunities and Lives

5. Partition and Independence

Key to the Bibliographical References

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Torri, Michelguglielmo
MICHELGUGLIELMO TORRI, a former Harkness Fellow, a retired full Professor of Asian History (University of Turin), presently the president of 'Asia Maior, an Italian think tank on Asia', is the doyen of the Italian historians working on South Asia. He has widely published in Italian and English, with articles appeared in Economic and Political Weekly, the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Studies in History and The Indian Economic and Social History Review, among others.