India: The Definitive History

by D.R. SarDesai

D. R. SarDesai presents the history of India in its entire civilizational depth. Using an Indiacentric approach, (as opposed to the Eurocentric or Anglocentric) the book covers the process of change in India through the centuries affecting different segments of the society, including the subalterns. He deals with the sweep of traditional Indian history as well as with the post-independence events, judicially balancing narrative and analysis in the conceptual framework of postcolonial and postmodernist approaches. This is the first major survey which deals with the entire Indian history along the lines of tradition and modernity instead of the old and largely inapplicable divisions of ancient, medieval and modern time frames. In adopting such a periodization, the book supports what is followed by most instructors in their courses on India.

Genres: History

512 pages, Paperback

First published August 6, 2007

About the author

Dr. Damodar R. SarDesai is Emeritus Professor of History at UCLA. He formerly served as both Chair and Vice-Chair of the History Department at UCLA. Professor SarDesai is one of the world's leading South-East Asia scholars, although he has also researched & written extensively in the field of South Asian studies, and is perhaps best known as the author of 'Southeast Asia: Past & Present', which is now in its seventh edition. Professor SarDesai has received so many grants, awards and honors during the course of his career that I am not even going to attempt listing them.

Reviews

[Marcy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first exposure to Indian history. I liked the book, which reads like a textbook, because of its expansive coverage giving me a broad sense of India. But that also means that depth is sacrificed. For an introduction this book serves you well. From the Paleolithic era to the relatively recent past there is continuity to be gleaned from Satdesai's account. The largest failure of the book--especially because it is a textbook--is its lack of maps. Given how much history and geography changed over the centuries, it would be nice to have accompanying visual representations of that.

[Jindřich Zapletal · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is not Indo-centric history, it is Hindu nationalist history, and there is a big difference. You will get the full show, from "Out of India" theory, calling Bose a "great nationalist hero", the multimillion genocide/ethnic cleansing of 1947 is portrayed in a single sentence as a mass tourist outing too exhausting for some of the participants, we get a whole chapter about the Kashmir question but a single sentence about the Bangladesh war etc. Probably only a nationalist could think of such a preposterous book title.

Perhaps, if you know from which well you got the water, the water is easier to treat. Still, if you are like this reviewer and you respond to author's question "was nationalism an export or a gift of the West to the East?" with "it was and is a disfiguring contagious disease of the brain", you are not going to like this book much. Its strange internal balance makes it certainly the worst of all overall histories of India that I encountered.

[abatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25⭐️

[Sa Ma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating read from the tectonic plate shift up to 2006.
My first skim was to go through things that I had fleetingly overheard and was impressed with all of them being written about, thankfully with more detail.
It is a big endeavour to get through (500 pages of packed information), so you will need to know your capabilities and have a genuine interest in knowing the heritage of India.
I began reading knowing the names of only a few of the provinces.
Critics should not be rating this below 4 stars. It is a monumental piece.
Somehow I was drawn to the book but the reviews had me worried, and with no recent ones to assure me. Grateful to have found this at the library and have been totally blown away.

[Daniel Cunningham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Generally good, but a bit too much of what people commonly have as a history complaint, "...a bunch of kings and dates..." There were sections that seemed to just literally be this, though other sections were much less so.

The book also seemed, at least in parts, to have some editing issues (Kindle edition.)

[Jbondandrews · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reasonable rendering of the long and fascinating history of India. I'm glad for the mention of more women in the history. A very great subject to tackle.