Beginning with geographical and cultural perspective on the early Punjab, and the migration and settlement of Jatts by the seventeenth century, essays in the first part of this volume dwell on different aspects of socio-economic and cultural life in north-western India in the precolonial times. They focus on agrarian society. Modes of irrigation, trade and urbanization, Sahibanm in Punjabi literature, Punjabi heroic poetry, and cultural life in the time of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Twelve essays in the second part bring out multi-faceted change under colonial rule, with their focus on organization of administrative space, epidemics, customary law and Christian missionary activities in relation to women; response of peasants, agricultural laborers, conservative Hindus and Dalits to the colonial environment; politicization of Punjabi migrants in North America; convergence of communitarian and nationalist concerns before the jallianwala Bagh Massacre; escalation of communal violence in Lahore and Amritsar in the context of events leading to partition; and the attitudes of Punjabi writers towards colonial rule. This volume breaks fresh ground in regional history and raises some significant issues of historical methodology and interdisciplinary approach.
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