Author: Mushirul Hasan
Publisher: Roli Books
Year: 2001
Language: English
Pages: 368
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8174361308
Description
Attempting to break from academic routine, this book traces India's history from 1857 to 1947 through the eyes of three protagonists - Aziz, Pradip and Jagmohan - a period covering colonialism, Independence and Partition.
Abandoning traditional forms, this narrative surveys the history of modern India through the sensitive eyes of three protagonists - Aziz, Pradip and Jagmohan. Professor Hasan brings to life, in all their complexity, the histories of colonial rule, Independence and Partition. Focusing largely on the years 1857 to 1947, he provides a series of dialogues, interspersed with Urdu couplets, that will engage the reader and give them an independent and eclectic viewpoint on a familiar story.
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK:
Professor Mushirul Hasan is our most erudite and prolific scholar of the complex role that Muslim political leaders, intellectuals and other luminaries have played in the making of modern India. John Company to the Republic bears all the marks of that scholarship and those concerns but in a manner rather unique. It is composed in accessible prose, in the form of a dialogue, with a wealth of historical evidence which is nevertheless presented conversationally, without the gravity of academic paraphernalia. It is a lively, surprising, pleasurable book, and a wise one. The historical and the poetic are here in a fierce embrace, rescuing it from the aridity of so much academic writing. - Professor Aijaz Ahmad, Formerly Professorial Fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum Library, New Delhi.
I think you may have something really interesting here which could greatly extend the market for history Indian and reach into levels of society that the 'dry as dust' types will never. - Francis Robinson, Eminent historian of Islam in India