Author: R Champakalakshmi
S Gopal/
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2001
Language: English
Pages: 358
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0195654420
Description
This collection of essays in honor of Romila Thapar on the themes of tradition, dissent, and ideology, shows how the discourse of continuity remains significant in legitimizing and carrying through changes within tradition.
While problems of a binary opposition between tradition and modernity have long been recognized, a simple inversion with an overemphasis on change is also problematic. This collection of essays on the themes of tradition, dissent, and ideology, which are central to Romila Thapar’s concerns, shows how the discourse of continuity remains significant in legitimizing and carrying through changes within tradition.
Further, the dialectic of accommodation and marginalization, and the concurrent tendencies of homogenization and differentiation are also explored. The volume covers a time span from the Vedic age to the Nehruvian era and ranges across cultural regions from ancient Mesopotamia to Sri Lanka.
This collection will be of immense value to historians of ancient, medieval, and modern India.
EXCERPTS FROM REVIEWS:
As is appropriate in a felicitation volume for a scholar who has inspired so many …, it ranges widely over time and space, extending from ancient Mesopotamia to Peruvian secularism…the editors rightly acknowledge Thapar’s “inspirational role” in taking on the Sangh Parivar.
- Sumit Sarkar, Biblio
This book offers refreshingly, a new perspective on tradition, dissent and ideology.
- The Hindu
A scholarly compendium of articles.
- The Book Review
THE EDITORS:
R CHAMPALAKSHMI retired as Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
S GOPAL is Professor Emeritus of Contemporary History at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.