Indian Historical Review 

About: Indian Historical Review is an academic journal published by SAGE Publishing. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Colonialism & Politics. It has an ISSN identifier of 0376-9836. Over the lifetime, 486 publications have been published receiving 2969 citations. The journal is also known as: The Indian historical review.

The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics 1925 to the 1990s

Abstract: The book under review is based on the author's Ph.D. thesis, an abridged form ofwhich was first published in French in 1993. The English version has been updated with the addition of a new fifth part. Comprising fourteen chapters, besides an Introduction, a Conclusion, an Epilogue, Appendices, and a Select Bibliography, it is one ofthe most thoroughly researched and well-documented studies of the Hindu nationalist politics covering the penod 1925-1990s. The bulk of the book is based on library research including party documents, etc., which has been well supplemented with interviews of party leaders and a case-study of the BJP and allied organizations in Madhya Pradesh.

The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Post-Colonial Histories:

Abstract: In recent years historical writings on nationalism have tended to tum away from large, holistic, totalized histories of nationalism. Conventional history had been underwritten by the, liberal assumption of an inexorable, linear progress towards nationhood and modernity. To tell the story of nationalism, they were narratively committed to a telling of a particular kind: an account which separated out of the great chaos of varying ideological events a single thread and showed nationalism arising and moving to its destiny. By its nature, this conception ofnationalism had to behomogenizing. Although these scholars were often conscious that people opposed the British with ideas that were differently inflected, grounded, expressed, coloured, stylized, motivated but the major purpose of the concept of nationalism was to point to their level ofhistorical similarity. Within seemingly homogeneous historythere are conflicts between tendencies, the axis and the periphery, the mainstream and the embarrassing fringe, the self and the other. From being the inheritor of one stream, albeit the major one, such a history takes a small, subtle, perhaps historically inevitable, step towards claiming to be the inheritor of all. Such displacements having been going on continuously in the history of nationalism, there are appropriations within appropriations. Thus this history claims singular universality by asserting privilege over all other local, plural protests and declaring all other subjectivities as inadequate, fragmentary and subordinate.

Technological Momentum Bengal in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract: The nineteenth century was a very significant period in the history of modern India. It was during this period that the country witnessed the emergence of many intellectual currents in all aspects: religious, social, political, economic and cultural. For the colonial power, by the beginning of the nineteenth century, the empire had more or less been won. The job was to keep it, and to use it for profit. Colonialism was not the result of mere Western superiority, but of the unleashing of overwhelming force backed by technology at minimal cost. Technological changes affected the timing and location of European conquests and thus determined the economic relations of colonialism. It made European expansion swift, thorough and cheap. The new ability of Europeans in the nineteenth century to conquer other territories arose from relatively few inventions like iron-hulled steam ships, improved firearms, telegraph, railways and so on. With these tools, Europeans brought about a shift in global relations. The curre...

Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity and Belief

Abstract: to a situation in north Bihar what the author calls a \"dual government\" state controlling the law and administration and the landlords controlling the society and economy. This is a conclusion that can hardly be disputed. The publisher's claim in the blurb that the book is \"a significant contribution towards an understanding of the origin and development of agrarian society in India\" is legitimate. The book deserves to be read by all those interested in India's agrarian history; particularly of Bihar.