History and Collective Memory in South Asia, 1200–2000

"Guha’s expertise in early modern Indian history allows him to explore “social structure and historical narration in western India” in great depth."

"Guha brings together sources from a range of languages and regions toprovide the rst intellectual history of the ways in which socially recognized historicalmemory has been made across the subcontinent. This thoughtful study contributes todebates beyond the eld of history that complicate the understanding of objectivityand documentation in a seemingly post-truth world."

"Guha’s book comes at a time when the authority of specialist historians is increasingly under challenge, while the gap between academic and public history seems larger and more in open conflict than ever. Through meticulous presentation of how the practice of history writing is shaped by the social-political context of the recording agents, Guha problematises the view that history writing can be seen as an autonomous cognitive practice of a specialised group."

"[D]evelops important arguments about the public significance of historical knowledge and the essential role of historians in public life."

"[O]ffers the most recent reflection on historiography, history, and memory by a leader in the discipline of South Asian history. Given publications spanning a range of topics in South Asian history, such as caste in social and cultural history, environmental history, health and population history, and agrarian history, Guha gives a veteran practitioner’s perspective on history and memory in South Asian history."

"[A] welcome addition to the burgeoning scholarship around the practices of history writing in India and its relationship with the public sphere."

"[E]xtraordinary scholarship."

"Guha charts the rise of historical memory in South Asia in a way that moves past literary affect or philosophical predisposition, refusing to reduce his subject to a reconfiguration of Western historiography even while he traces parallels in colonial institutions. Instead, Guha engages everything from family lineages and modes of accounting, to grand memorial narratives of the rise and fall of dynasties, to give us a comprehensive study how social memory, wedded to evidence-based reasoning, transformed into the historical arts of South Asia, and finally how history matters even now in a ‘post-truth’ age."

"Much of this rich and exciting material has not been discussed in published form before. The subject of how South Asians have constructed the past has been an increasingly important one in the field; this book will become one of the most original and substantial contributions to this literature."

"Not only does Guha possess a mastery of a staggering diversity of historical practices in South Asia, his analysis extends to a thoughtful discussion of (and argument about) the origins and development of European history writing."

"Amid the acrimony and pessimism of our current 'post-truth' era, Professor Guha takes us on a wonderfully refreshing journey through the myriad ways in which human societies have approached the interface between specialist history writing and popular memory. Combining remarkable breadth of learning with vivid insights derived from South Asian experience, Guha offers us a new sense of the possibilities of balance between older disciplinary norms of evidence-based history writing, and the dynamic world of public and popular argumentation as it settles and acquires the status of collective memory."

"Guha reminds us that the now-standard Western method of history writing, as practiced and taught in university departments, is of fairly recent vintage. This book should go well beyond the usual circles of South Asia specialists to general readers interested in comparative historiography and epistemology."