Burton Stein. A History of India

Wiley-Blackwell, 1998. - 469 p.
ISBN 978-1-4051-9509-6Burton Stein’s A History of India is one of the most ambitious histories of the subcontinent ever undertaken, certainly by an individual scholar and in a single - volume work. First published in 1998, it profi ted from the decades of intensive scholarly research that had been carried out by Western and South Asian scholars since the 1950s and to which Stein himself was an active and infl uential contributor. Although in the History Stein seldom refers explicitly to specifi c historians, their views are at least implicit in his critical treatment of Indian feudalism, the nature of the Vijayanagara‘ empire’, the decline of the Mughals and the personality and leadership of M. K. Gandhi. It is evident, too, even if not foregrounded, in the wealth of historiography and historical debate, which Stein himself found‘ marvellously stimulating’, that consistently underpins and animates his discussion. But the History of India also strongly refl ects its author’ s wide - ranging personal engagement with the history of South Asia, especially with the history of south India from the medieval period to the early colonial era.