Waterstones India in the Persianate Age
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Price: £14.99
Brand: Waterstones
Description: SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE' Remarkable. this brilliant book stands as an important monument to an almost forgotten world' William Dalrymple, Spectator A sweeping, magisterial new history of India from the middle ages to the arrival of the British The Indian subcontinent might seem a self-contained world. Protected by vast mountains and seas, it has created its own religions, philosophies and social systems. And yet this ancient land experienced prolonged and intense interaction with the peoples and cultures of East and Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa and, especially, Central Asia and the Iranian plateau between the eleventh and eighteenth centuries. Richard M. Eaton's wonderful new book tells this extraordinary story with relish and originality. His major theme is the rise of 'Persianate' culture - a many-faceted transregional world informed by a canon of texts that circulated through ever-widening networks across much of Asia. Introduced to India in the eleventh century by dynasties based in eastern Afghanistan, this culture would become thoroughly indigenized by the time of the great Mughals in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. This long-term process of cultural interaction and assimilation is reflected in India's language, literature, cuisine, attire, religion, styles of rulership and warfare, science, art, music, architecture, and more. The book brilliantly elaborates the complex encounter between India's Sanskrit culture - which continued to flourish and grow throughout this period - and Persian culture, which helped shape the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughal Empire and a host of regional states, and made India what it is today. Waterstones India in the Persianate Age - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: Waterstones
Product ID: 9780141985398
Delivery cost: 2.99
ISBN: 9780141985398
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Author: Dave Jobson
Rating: 5
Review: No dislikes. It provided me with information for a project I am involved in
Author: A. S. Hunt
Rating: 3
Review: India in the Persianate Age is an informative read on the subcontinent. Given the breadth of time and subject matter it covers, the author does a remarkable job in condensing a vast amount of information into a relatively readable (if slightly dry) space. Discussions of dress, court ritual, fortification building, trade, tax, and the whole interplay of socio-cultural history are discussed. It is here that the book's one technical weakness shows through: it spends a remarkable amount of time discussing and describing architecture, but features very few pictures, all of which are clumped together in the middle. The suffusion of Persianate culture into North India is well-argued and well researched, with the history of Kashmir in particular providing a fascinating insight into this. The only major flaw in this element is the author's attempt to suggest the sultunate model's relative separation of church and state to be somehow unique, as if the Christian churches across the world were not religious bodies separate to the state. This is not, in itself important, but it is an early indicator (along with some mild pejoratives about colonial rule scattered about the book) of Eaton's revisionist prejudices. This becomes most apparent when the author moves into the Mughal period, with particular the reign of Aurangzeb. Early on, the author sets out to downplay the religious aspect to conflict in India across this period: and, indeed, for most of the period, he successfully does this by demonstrating the clear religious pluralism and tolerance of the various rulers. Unfortunately, rather than discuss the realities of Aurangzeb's reign (whom he persists in calling Alamgir), Eaton chooses to engage in apologetics, eliding both the religious bigotry which was at the heart of Aurangzeb's reign and the increasingly religiosity of the conflict between Mughal and Maratha. Ultimately though, the book is a solid read, though anyone who's interests lie primarily in the Mughal period, I would recommend Abraham Eraly's The Mughal Throne for a political history of that storied dynasty, and for a somewhat different criticism of this world, I direct readers to also Sumeet P's insightful review of this tome.
