This book on Gupta Polity is a companion volume to the author`s earlier work The Mauryan Polity. The sources of information for a study of the subject are not as many as in the case of the later book. The author firmly believes that Kalidasa was not a protege of the Gupta Court but lived in second century b.c. and so his prolific works cannot be taken to throw any light on the Gupta empire. One has therefore to depend mainly on the Kamandakiya Nitisastra, the inscriptions and coins of the Gupta rulers and the accounts of the Chinese traveller Fa-hien for a knowledge of the Gupta Polity.

The work is divided into sixteen chapters. It has an index of proper names and an addenda on the board of new Imperial Gupta coins discovered at Bayana in Bharatpur, The work is very interesting and instruction and is designed to meet the requirements of the academic student of history and the general reader alike.

The present work describes the material and moral progress which India had achieved during the paramount sovereignty of the Gupta emperors in the fourth and fifth centuries a.d. It traces the origin and rise of the ruling family to Srigupta (240-280 a.d.) and concludes with the reign of Kumaragupta III (543 a.d.). It discusses the spirit of the age and the various trends in the sphere of Religion, Economy, Society, Education, Administration, Art and Architecture. It seeks to bring together all the facts and data derivable from different sources--literary, epigraphic and numismatic, the accounts of foreign visitors, particularly of the Chinese pilgrim Fa-hien who has left a detached and valuable record of India`s civilization during the reign of Chandragupta II. Herein we get an accurate picture of India`s golden age, the growth of her various institutions, her activities of expansion, colonization and her intercourse with Indonesia, China and other countries. The work is divided into sixteen chapters. It has an index of proper names and an addenda on the hoard of new Imperial Gupta coins discovered at Bayana in Bharatpur. The work is very interesting and instructive and is designed to meet the requirements of the academic student of history and the general reader alike.

Social movements play a vital and increasingly visible role in modern politics. Headline-grabbing demonstrations against authoritarian governments, police brutality, economic inequality, and other grievances suggest that, around the world, social movements are seen as powerful catalysts of change. In democracies as well as autocracies, rich countries as well as poor, citizens turn repeatedly to protest as a way of addressing a range of perceived social ills. In this engaging and accessible book, Devashree Gupta offers a thorough introduction to the study of social movements in these diverse settings, examining their structures and operations to identify the ways in which political and social contexts shape how movements behave and what impacts they have. Drawing on multiple theoretical approaches and contemporary case studies, Gupta explores how movements think and act strategically, learning from past interactions with authorities and the experiences of other movements, to find innovative ways to challenge the status quo. With suggestions for further reading and questions for class discussion throughout, Protest Politics Today will be essential reading for students of social movements and contentious politics across the world.

This book presents a state-of-the-art overview of the relationship between globalization studies and literature and literary studies, and the bearing that they have on each other. It engages with the manner in which globalization is thematized in literary works, examines the relationship between globalization theory and literary theory, and discusses the impact of globalization processes on the production and reception of literary texts. Suman Gupta argues that, while literature has registered globalization processes in relevant ways, there has been a missed articulation between globalization studies and literary studies. Examples are given of some of the ways in which this slippage is now being addressed and may be taken forward, taking up such themes as the manner in which anti-globalization protests and world cities have figured in literary works; the ways in which theories of postmodernism and postcolonialism, familiar in literary studies, have diverged from and converged with globalization studies; and how industries to do with the circulation of literature are becoming globalized. This book is intended for university-level students and teachers, researchers, and other informed readers with an interest in the above issues, and serves as both a survey of the field and an intervention within it.

State, Power and Legitimacy: The Gupta Kingdom presents a comprehensive account of the Gupta state, with particular emphasis on its strategies of legitimizing its power. The political strategies that characterized this crucial juncture of early Indian history, termed 'threshold times' by Romila Thapar, employed certain features of ancient Indian polity even as new political mechanisms were emerging. This volume argues that this unique combination of political strategizing was a part of the process of legitimizing royal authority, in which religion, literature and art were essential tools. The volume also includes a large selection of prepublished essays which provide the reader with a comprehensive idea of how the Gupta state has been studied by earlier historians together with recent articles which help us to look at the Gupta state and the manner in which it exercised and legitimized its power. A substantive introduction suggests the need to move beyond the nationalist perspective that views the rule of the Guptas as the 'Golden Age' or the Marxist model of 'Indian feudalism'.

Annotation World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500 offers a comprehensive introduction to the history of humankind from prehistory to 1500. Authored by six USG faculty members with advance degrees in History, this textbook offers up-to-date original scholarship. It covers such cultures, states, and societies as Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Israel, Dynastic Egypt, India's Classical Age, the Dynasties of China, Archaic Greece, the Roman Empire, Islam, Medieval Africa, the Americas, and the Khanates of Central Asia. It includes 350 high-quality images and maps, chronologies, and learning questions to help guide student learning. Its digital nature allows students to follow links to applicable sources and videos, expanding their educational experience beyond the textbook. It provides a new and free alternative to traditional textbooks, making World History an invaluable resource in our modern age of technology and advancement.

Nandini Gooptu's magisterial 2001 history of the labouring poor in India represents a tour-de-force.