ebooks Shari‘a Politics: Islamic Law and Society in the Modern World by From Indiana University Press in History

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The political context in which historians of India find themselves today; says Sumit Sarkar; is dominated by the advance of the Hindu Right and globalized forms of capitalism; while the historian’s intellectual context is dominated by the marginalization of all varieties of Marxism and an academic shift to cultural studies and postmodern critique. In Beyond Nationalist Frames; one of India’s foremost contemporary historians offers his view of how the craft of history should be practiced in this complex conjuncture. In studies of colonial time-keeping; Rabindranath Tagore’s fiction; and pre-Independence Bengal; Sarkar explores new approaches to the writing of history. Essays on contemporary politics consider the implications of the "Hindu Bomb;" the rewriting of national history textbooks by Hindu fundamentalists; and the issue of conversion to Christianity. Scholars in all the fields touched by recent developments in South Asian historiography―anthropology; feminist theory; comparative literature; cultural studies―will find this a stimulating and provocative collection of essays; as will anyone interested in Indian politics.