''The History and Culture of the Indian People'' is a series of eleven volumes on the history of India, from prehistoric times to the establishment of the modern state in 1947. Historian

Ramesh Chandra Majumdar Ramesh Chandra Majumdar (known as R. C. Majumdar; 4 December 1888 – 11 February 1980) was a historian and professor of Indian history. Majumdar is a noted historian of modern India. He was a former Sheriff of Kolkata. Early life and educatio ...

was the general editor of the series, as well as a major contributor. The entire work took 26 years to complete. The set was published in India by the

Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan is an Indian educational trust. It was founded on 7 November 1938 by Dr K.M Munshi, with the support of Mahatma Gandhi. The trust programmes through its 119 centres in India, 7 centres abroad and 367 constituent instit ...

, Mumbai.

Overview

The first volume (1951) is about the

Vedic period The Vedic period, or the Vedic age (), is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas (ca. 1300–900 BCE), was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, betw ...

. It has 27 chapters by 11 contributors. Three chapters and part of a fourth were written by R. C. Majumdar. Other contributors to the first volume are V. M. Apte, A. D. Pusalker and B. K. Gosh. The volume discusses the archaeology, geology, flora, fauna and other aspects of this period and includes a chapter on the palaeolithic, neolithic and copper ages by H. D. Sankalia. This volume was first published by George Allen & Unwin Ltd in London though it was prepared under the auspices of Bharatiya Itihasa Samiti, a part of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Its subsequent editions and other volumes were published in India by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. The sixth volume (1960) is on the sultanate period of medieval India. This volume consists of 19 chapters by 19 contributors. Six chapters and parts of four other chapters were written by R. C. Majumdar. Other significant contributors to this volume are S. Roy, A. K. Majumdar, P. M. Joshi, N. Venkataramanya, S. K. Chatterjee and S. K. Saraswati. The seventh volume (1974) is on the

Mughal era The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

. This volume has 24 chapters by 28 contributors. Only parts of two chapters were written by R. C. Majumdar. The most significant contributors to this volume are J. N. Chaudhuri, G. S. Sardesai, A. L. Srivastava, Abdur Rashid and S. Roy.

Reception

Upon the appearance of the first volume in the series, in a review in the ''Isis'' journal M.F. Ashley Montagu described it as: Marxist historian D. N. Jha however describes the first three volumes as: Historian

John Keay John Stanley Melville Keay FRGS is a British historian, journalist, radio presenter and lecturer specialising in popular histories of India, the Far East and China, often with a particular focus on their colonisation and exploration by Europe ...

describes the work as:

References

External links

Volume 1
''The Vedic Age rehistory to 600 B.C.'
Volume 2
''The Age of Imperial Unity 00 B.C. to 320 A.D.'
Volume 3
''The Classical Age 20-750 A.D.'
Volume 4
''The Age of Imperial Kanauj 50-1000 A.D.'
Volume 5
''The Struggle for Empire 000-1300 A.D.'
Volume 6
''The Delhi Sultanate 300-1526'
Volume 7
''The Mughul Empire 526-1707'
Volume 8
''The Maratha Supremacy 707-1818'
Volume 9
''British Paramountcy and Indian Renaissance, Part 1 818-1905'
Volume 10
''British Paramountcy and Indian Renaissance, Part 2 818-1905'
Volume 11
''Struggle for Freedom 905-1947' {{DEFAULTSORT:History And Culture Of The Indian People History books about India 1951 non-fiction books Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

Overview

Reception

See also

References

External links