In a series of candid conversations, Romila Thapar, a widely read, discussed and cited historian of our times, muses on a range of issues that impact history writing in modern India. Apart from exploring Thapar’s far-reaching influence as an authority on the history of early India, Talking History examines themes such as the function of a historian, the centrality of historical research and evidence, oriental despotism, the ongoing conflict with religious fundamentalists and the polymorphous structure of Hinduism. Anecdotal and vibrant, each of these accounts reveals a rare understanding of history as a dialogue between the past and the present.
The latest book in the series of Ramin Jahanbegloo’s interviews with prominent intellectuals who have influenced modern Indian thought, Talking History traces Romila Thapar’s journey as a historian and a public intellectual and gives an insight into the ideas that have shaped her work.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ramin Jahanbegloo
Ramin Jahanbegloo Head of the Dept. for Contemporary Thought, Cultural Research Bureau, Teheran, Iran.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Romila Thapar
Romila Thapar was born in India in 1931 and comes from a Punjabi family, spending her early years in various parts of India. She took her first degree from Punjab University and her doctorate from London University. She was appointed to a Readership at Delhi University and subsequently to the Chair in Ancient Indian History at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where she is now Emeritus Professor in History. Romila Thapar is also an Honorary Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and has been Visiting Professor at Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania as well as the College de France in Paris. In 1983 she was elected General President of the Indian History Congress and in 1999 a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. Among her publications are Ashoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations, From Lineage to State, History and Beyond, Sakuntala: Texts, Readings, Histories and Cultural Pasts: Essays on Indian History as well the children's book Indian Tales.
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