Social History of Andhra Pradesh

Till the latter half of the nineteen fifties, when Kosambi revolutionised the study of history on a socioeconomic basis through his An Introduction of Indian History, historical studies in India were mostly dynastic and political–cataloguing the list of the kings and their achievements. Since then many have followed the footsteps of the savant and have published tomes on the socioeconomic aspects of India–regional and pan-Indian. Yet this trend was rather slow to pick up in South India, more so in Andhra, where very few books of this type have been brought out. One of them is the present volume by Nagolu Krishna Reddy. Reddy’s period of study is from the seventh to thirteenth century A.D.–a time span of six hundred eventful years. For the commencement of the study marks the blossoming of Telugu into an effective popular language of the people and the end deals with the turbulent years of the Muslim invasion and the valiant ventures of the Kakatiya generals trying to uphold Hindu dharma.