The South Asian subcontinent is home to nearly a billion people and has been the site of fierce historical contestation. It is a panoply of languages and religions with a rich and complex history and culture. Drawing on the newest and most sophisticated historical research and scholarship in the field, Modern South Asia is written in an accessible style for all those with an intellectual curiosity about the region. After sketching the pre-modern history of the subcontinent, the book concentrates on the last three centuries from c.1700 to the present. Jointly written by two leading Indian and Pakistani historians, it offers a rare depth of historical understanding of the politics, cultures and economies that shape the lives of more than a fifth of humanity. In this comprehensive study, the authors debate and challenge the striking developments in contemporary South Asian history and historical writing. The book provides new insights into the structure and ideology of the British raj, the meaning of subaltern resistance, the refashioning of social relations along lines of caste, class, community and gender, the different strands of anti-colonial nationalism and the dynamics of decolonization. This book is a work of synthesis and interpretation covering the entire spectrum of modern South Asian history - social, economic and political. The authors offer an understanding of this startegically and economically vital part of the world.

Noted historian Ian Talbot has written a new history of modern South Asia that considers the Indian Subcontinent in regional rather than in solely national terms. A leading expert on the Partition of 1947, Talbot focuses here on the combined history of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh since 1757 and specifically on the impact of external influences on the local peoples and cultures. This text explores the region’s colonial and postcolonial past, and the cultural and economic Indian reaction to the years of British authority, thus viewing the transformation of modern South Asia through the lens of a wider world.

The History of the Book in South Asia covers not only the various modern states that make up South Asia today but also a multitude of languages and scripts. For centuries it was manuscripts that dominated book production and circulation, and printing technology only began to make an impact in the late eighteenth century. Print flourished in the colonial period and in particular lithographic printing proved particularly popular in South Asia both because it was economical and because it enabled multi-script printing. There are now vibrant publishing cultures in the nation states of South Asia, and the essays in this volume cover the whole range from palm-leaf manuscripts to contemporary print culture.

The fifth edition of Modern South Asia draws on the newest historical research and scholarship in the field to interpret and debate key developments in modern South Asian history and historical writing, covering the diverse spectrum of the subcontinent’s social, economic and political past. Jointly authored by two leading Indian and Pakistani historians, this definitive study offers a rare depth of historical understanding of the politics, cultures and economies that have shaped the lives of more than a fifth of humanity. This new edition on the 75th anniversary of independence and partition brings the narrative up to the present day, discussing recent events and addressing new themes such as the capture of state power in India by the forces of religious majoritarianism, economic development in the context of the ‘rise’ of Asia and strategic shifts occasioned by the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and China’s increasing role in the region. Providing fresh insights into the structure and ideology of the British raj, the meaning of subaltern resistance, the refashioning of social relations along lines of caste, class, religion and gender, the different strands of anti-colonial nationalism and the dynamics of decolonization, this is an essential resource for all students of the modern history of South Asia in an Indian Ocean and global context.

In South Asia, as elsewhere, the category of ‘the public’ has come under increased scholarly and popular scrutiny in recent years. To better understand this current conjuncture, we need a fuller understanding of the specifically South Asian history of the term. To that end, this book surveys the modern Indian ‘public’ across multiple historical contexts and sites, with contributions from leading scholars of South Asia in anthropology, history, literary studies and religious studies. As a whole, this volume highlights the complex genealogies of the public in the Indian subcontinent during the colonial and postcolonial eras, showing in particular how British notions of ‘the public’ intersected with South Asian forms of publicity. Two principal methods or approaches—the genealogical and the typological—have characterised this scholarship. This book suggests, more in the mode of genealogy, that the category of the public has been closely linked to the sub-continental history of political liberalism. Also discussed is how the studies collected in this volume challenge some of liberalism’s key presuppositions about the public and its relationship to law and religion.

Perspectives on Modern South Asia presents an exciting core collection of essays drawn from anthropology, literary and cultural studies, history, sociology, economics, and political science to reveal the complexities of a region that is home to a fifth of humanity. Presents an interdisciplinary overview of the origins and development of the eight nations comprising modern South Asia: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka Explores South Asia’s common cultures, languages and religions and their relationship to its ethnic and national differences Features essays that provide understandings of the central dynamics of South Asia as an important cultural, political, and economic region of the world

Few regions have shaped the world's history as deeply as South Asia. The birthplace of three of the world's major religions-Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism-the Indian subcontinent has made indelible contributions to the world, from foods such as curry and granulated sugar to the performance of meditation and yoga, from the architectural magnificence of the Taj Mahal to the binary system of numbers. In this accessible book, Marc Jason Gilbert takes us on a journey through South Asia's fascinating history, starting with the blossoming of the Harappan civilization in the fertile Indus valley more than four thousand years ago. Following the routes of the cotton, tea, and opium trade that connected the West and the East throughout history, Gilbert describes South Asia's classical Hindu and Buddhist empires, the coming of Islam to South Asia, the local impact of the Mongol invasions, the splendors of the Mughal Empire, the expansion of British colonial dominion, and the development of South Asian modern nations-Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, and Myanmar-in the twentieth century. The book concludes with a timely reflection on the contradictory face of contemporary South Asia. Although the region has produced some of the world's most iconic leaders of non-violent protest-Mahatma Gandhi, Arundhati Roy, Mother Teresa, and Aung San Suu Kyi-severe social divisions and injustice persist in most South Asian countries. Simultaneously, extraordinary economic growth is deeply transforming South Asian societies and may enable them to rival the United States and China as the world's largest economies. Gilbert's transnational perspective illuminates how world historical processes-from changes in the environment and the economy to the movement of peoples and ideas-have shaped and continue to shape the history of South Asia and its place in the wider world.

“Statemaking and Territory in South Asia: Lessons from the Anglo–Gorkha War (1814–1816)” seeks to understand how European colonization transformed the organization of territory in South Asia through an examination of the territorial disputes that underlay the Anglo–Gorkha War of 1814–1816 and subsequent efforts of the colonial state to reorder its territories. The volume argues that these disputes arose out of older tribute, taxation and property relationships that left their territories perpetually intermixed and with ill-defined boundaries. It also seeks to describe the long-drawn-out process of territorial reordering undertaken by the British in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that set the stage for the creation of a clearly defined geographical template for the modern state in South Asia.

The modern states of Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Laos, Brunei, and East Timor were once a tapestry of kingdoms, colonies, and smaller polities linked by sporadic trade and occasional war. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the United States and several European powers had come to control almost the entire region - only to depart dramatically in the decades following World War II. perspective on this complex region. Although it does not neglect nation-building (the central theme of its popular and long-lived predecessor, In Search of Southeast Asia), the present work focuses on economic and social history, gender, and ecology. It describes the long-term impact of global forces on the region and traces the spread and interplay of capitalism, nationalism, and socialism. It acknowledges that modernization has produced substantial gains in such areas as life expectancy and education but has also spread dislocation and misery. Organizationally, the book shifts between thematic chapters that describe social, economic, and cultural change, and country chapters emphasizing developments within specific areas. will establish a new standard for the history of this dynamic and radically transformed region of the world.

At the beginning of the 21st century, alcoholism, transnational drug trafficking and drug addiction constitute major problems in various South Asian countries. The production, circulation and consumption of intoxicating substances created (and responded to) social upheavals in the region and had widespread economic, political and cultural repercussions on an international level. This book looks at the cultural, social, and economic history of intoxicants in South Asia, and analyses the role that alcohol and drugs have played in the region. The book explores the linkages between changing meanings of intoxicating substances, the making of and contestations over colonial and national regimes of regulation, economics, and practices and experiences of consumption. It shows the development of current meanings of intoxicants in South Asia – in terms of politics, cultural norms and identity formation – and the way in which the history of drugs and alcohol is enmeshed in the history of modern empires and nation states — even in a country in which a staunch teetotaller and active anti-drug crusader like Mohandas Gandhi is presented as the ‘father of the nation’. Primarily a historical analysis, the book also includes perspectives from Modern Indology and Cultural Anthropology and situates developments in South Asia in wider imperial and global contexts. It is of interest to scholars working on the social and cultural history of alcohol and drugs, South Asian Studies and Global History.