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Connected History: Essays and Arguments
A collection of essays that span many regions and cultures, by an award-winning historian
Sanjay Subrahmanyam is becoming well known for the same sort of reasons that attach to Fernand Braudel and Carlo Ginzburg, as the proponent of a new kind of history - in his case, not longue durée or micro-history, but 'connected history': connected cross-culturally, and spanning regions, subjects and archives that are conventionally treated alone. Not a research paradigm, he insists, it is more of an oppositionswissenschaft, a way of trying to constantly break the moulds of historical objects.
The essays collected here, some quite polemical - as in the lead text on the notion of India-as-civilization, or another, assessing such a literary totem as V. S. Naipaul - illustrate the breadth of Subrahmanyam's concerns, as well as the quality of his writing. Connected History considers what, exactly, is an empire, the rise of 'the West' (less of a place than an idea or ideology, he insists), Churchill and the Great Man theory of history, the reception of world literature and the itinerary of subaltern studies, in addition to personal recollections of life and work in Delhi, Paris and Lisbon, and concluding remarks on the practice of early-modern history and the framing of historical enquiry.
Sanjay Subrahmanyam is becoming well known for the same sort of reasons that attach to Fernand Braudel and Carlo Ginzburg, as the proponent of a new kind of history - in his case, not longue durée or micro-history, but 'connected history': connected cross-culturally, and spanning regions, subjects and archives that are conventionally treated alone. Not a research paradigm, he insists, it is more of an oppositionswissenschaft, a way of trying to constantly break the moulds of historical objects.
The essays collected here, some quite polemical - as in the lead text on the notion of India-as-civilization, or another, assessing such a literary totem as V. S. Naipaul - illustrate the breadth of Subrahmanyam's concerns, as well as the quality of his writing. Connected History considers what, exactly, is an empire, the rise of 'the West' (less of a place than an idea or ideology, he insists), Churchill and the Great Man theory of history, the reception of world literature and the itinerary of subaltern studies, in addition to personal recollections of life and work in Delhi, Paris and Lisbon, and concluding remarks on the practice of early-modern history and the framing of historical enquiry.
304 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2022
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About the author
Sanjay Subrahmanyam
69 books75 followersHe taught Delhi School of Economics, then EHESS (Paris), then Oxford, before becoming Holder of Navin and Pratima Doshi Chair of Indian History at UCLA which he joined in 2004.
In 2013, he became Holder of Early Modern Global History Chair at Collège de France.
In 2013, he became Holder of Early Modern Global History Chair at Collège de France.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 15, 2024
A bit of an odd one this. A mix of book reviews (fiction and non fiction) diaries and memoirs, theoretical/methodological reflections and soft pedalled policy proposals.. Maybe an odd choice for the verso "classics of world history" series, which really seems just like Perry Anderson plugging one of his mates. Nonetheless lots of interesting stuff and lots of references to follow on from. I would like to have time to read some of his own research. Touches on lots of interesting material and gives a good if glancing introduction to his notion of "connected histories" which is an attempt to get outside of historiography in national categories and framings.
He has an annoying habit of coyly intimating his own, more superior and nuanced position on a matter without directly stating what that is. His own politics as another reviewer has said, are not entirely obvious. He seems to defend an Indian class culture of domestic service which sits uneasily with his more egalitarian comments but it is hard to pull out exactly what he is saying.
His views are most explicit when talking about education: tax breaks for philanthropic donations towards education is his most concrete policy programme so maybe not super radical. Interesting to read more of his work though.
He has an annoying habit of coyly intimating his own, more superior and nuanced position on a matter without directly stating what that is. His own politics as another reviewer has said, are not entirely obvious. He seems to defend an Indian class culture of domestic service which sits uneasily with his more egalitarian comments but it is hard to pull out exactly what he is saying.
His views are most explicit when talking about education: tax breaks for philanthropic donations towards education is his most concrete policy programme so maybe not super radical. Interesting to read more of his work though.
March 6, 2025
collection of grumpy polemics directed against other historians of the Asian sub-continent whether neo-imperial, post-structuralist or Marxisant: he calls Wallerstein 'boring'. the intellectual autobiography, outlines of spats around subaltern studies are very tedious, the literary criticism - Naipaul, Rushdie, Marquez - is probably the highlight because of how personalised and dismissive it is. this line made me lol in public: 'Naipaul is a prototype that has now been cloned many times over in the Indian subcontinent: the fiction writer who is also a travel writer with pretensions to omniscience. One can see why Pankaj Mishra may read and review Naipaul with an Oedipal frisson. Vatermord or ancestor worship? It can be a hard choice'.
August 24, 2024
How does a historian read the present? What are their challenges? How can they become subjective and objective simultaneously? Barring provocative comments against Ashish Nandy and Pankaj Mishra, writers whom I love reading, "Connected History" is a remarkable title.
November 13, 2025
"They had already done a certain amount of the work of taking the inherited nationalist frame, which was the dominant frame of Indian history, and critiquing it. What is actually paradoxical is that, having critiqued it as a theoretical project, they still remained more or less prisoners of it, in terms of their own monographic production. None of them thought that it was interesting for instance to even write an article about some aspect of South East Asia or West Asia. They always write about India, or India in relation to the West. They are also completely dominated by the whole colonial encounter, which is understandable given their generation. This is for them a framing problem for all historical enquiries. Having the good fortune of coming a generation or half a generation after them, I could take some of this for granted. By the time I was doing my thesis, Partha Chatterjee’s famous book (Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World, 1986) more or less existed; Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities was out. For me it was pretty obvious that the nationalist frame was not the appropriate one.
But once you have done the theoretical critique of colonialism and of nationalist discourse, what are you going to construct as your objects? ... In India and I think here also in France, the national and the nationalistic historiography is still the dominant historiography. There will always be a dominant historiography. It has never been my concern to propose what is going to be the dominant paradigm. I think of this much more as Oppositionswissenschaft, a term that the early modern intellectual historian Peter Miller gave me. It is conceived to challenge and go against the grain, not in a negative sense and not in a mere sense of saying ‘here are your theoretical errors’, but to propose other concrete projects, to implement them and tell people, ‘here is another project, tell me what is wrong with this and why some other people cannot work in this style?’ Of course people will tell you that there are fifty thousand practical reasons for which it cannot be done."
The essays are decent but all pretty predictable and I feel like I knew all of this. aaagh
But once you have done the theoretical critique of colonialism and of nationalist discourse, what are you going to construct as your objects? ... In India and I think here also in France, the national and the nationalistic historiography is still the dominant historiography. There will always be a dominant historiography. It has never been my concern to propose what is going to be the dominant paradigm. I think of this much more as Oppositionswissenschaft, a term that the early modern intellectual historian Peter Miller gave me. It is conceived to challenge and go against the grain, not in a negative sense and not in a mere sense of saying ‘here are your theoretical errors’, but to propose other concrete projects, to implement them and tell people, ‘here is another project, tell me what is wrong with this and why some other people cannot work in this style?’ Of course people will tell you that there are fifty thousand practical reasons for which it cannot be done."
The essays are decent but all pretty predictable and I feel like I knew all of this. aaagh
January 1, 2025
This is a scattered collection of Sanjay Subramanyam's reviews and essays from the last three decades. He is glib, but he has style, and I found myself devouring it in a couple of days. There are two interviews of Sanjay in the book at the very end that really should be at the beginning of the volume - they provide context and background into how he approaches history and the study of history and what his interests are.
If you are interested in Indian history and the people who work on it, you might like some of the essays or reviews here. I now understand David Washbrook and Burton Stein's background better. And the ideological context is important when reading something like Stein's Vijayanagara or Washbrook's South India under colonial transition.
I have a much less clear sense of where Sanjay stands, except he's not too fond of Hindutva or the Marxists or Subaltern Studies. When he writes about Rushdie and Satanic Verses, he concludes that everyone involved in that conversation is blinded by their own biases, and nothing of consequence can be resolved in an academic setting. Even there, he's very reticent in describing his own position but seems happy pigeonholing others.
I will still read him though, because, like I said, he has a sense of style, and I cannot disrespect someone who has mastered primary materials in languages such as Portuguese, Spanish, French, Arabic, and possibly Telugu.
If you are interested in Indian history and the people who work on it, you might like some of the essays or reviews here. I now understand David Washbrook and Burton Stein's background better. And the ideological context is important when reading something like Stein's Vijayanagara or Washbrook's South India under colonial transition.
I have a much less clear sense of where Sanjay stands, except he's not too fond of Hindutva or the Marxists or Subaltern Studies. When he writes about Rushdie and Satanic Verses, he concludes that everyone involved in that conversation is blinded by their own biases, and nothing of consequence can be resolved in an academic setting. Even there, he's very reticent in describing his own position but seems happy pigeonholing others.
I will still read him though, because, like I said, he has a sense of style, and I cannot disrespect someone who has mastered primary materials in languages such as Portuguese, Spanish, French, Arabic, and possibly Telugu.
June 27, 2024
maybe i was supposed to know about sanjay subrahmanyam before reading this but I don't really feel like I learned much about history or really anything... the essays felt pretty dis-connected and random, maybe they would've spoken to me if I knew if this guy's work beforehand. No particular beef with any of them, but I didn't really notice any of the essays having much of a thesis or perspective other than sometimes refuting other people... The interviews at the end seemed to explain some of his beliefs about "connected history" but they were kind of vague enough to seem entirely uncontroversial and obvious... worth taking my review with a grain of salt, but I don't think this book has much value for a rando like me
May 29, 2023
It was interesting but also very self indulgant. I had no interest in knowing about the author’s travels in Paris and Portugese and I also failed to get any theme for the book, it was disconnected writing and sometimes just rambling. I could not put a finger on author’s politics either, but he claimed he was more liberal than anything else.
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August 6, 2024part-of-work-read
January 3, 2026
A very thoughtful historiography.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews