Pragati June 2009: A sense of history

This month’s Pragati is a history special and I was the guest editor.
But why history? Because, first, a shared understanding of history is likely to smoothen the public policy process in several important areas. Second, advances in science and technology are challenging age-old beliefs in Indian historiography and promise to transform the field. And third, we felt that the topics would interest you.
In this issue we have two editorial perspectives, five short feature essays (including one piece of historical fiction), one book review, and passages from five books written over a spread of two thousand years. The full text of the articles. references and explanatory footnotes are available on the website.
Download the PDF or visit the website

4 thoughts on “Pragati June 2009: A sense of history

  1. hiya: apropos the mitochondrial dating, it appears that its calibration has recently been shown to be wrong, throwing doubt, as this article says, into the dates obtained in the last 20 years of research. perhaps the dates need recomputing using the new methodology?

  2. Wonderful issue, JK! Really enjoyed reading your essays. Sometime in the future, will we see a full-fledged India-focused magazine on history? There’s very little history written for the lay person. Even if you forgive Romila Thapar for her biases, you can never forgive her for her writing: it’s so dull, any curious reader will make sure he stays away from Indian history after reading her work.

    1. Thanks Hari. I doubt if we will see full-fledged magazine focused on Indian history as there are not many who write popular history. Once in a while we could come up with a Pragati special issue.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *