Strangely enough I am currently reading A Brief History Of India by Alaine Danielou. The beginnig, that is where I am, itself is fascinating enough for me to get deeply engrossed in it, leave alone the hard sell that my young friend Koushik made about the book to me.
Recently, there has been a lot of rework being done about Indian history as the earlier works are presumed to have been deeply influenced by leftist historians with strong anti Hindu bias.
Among other books that I have read on Indian history recently is The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India by yer another foreigner, David Frawley.
I had read another fascinating book some time ago, by another foreigner Francois Gautier called Rewriting Indian History, and the current book kind of adds to the information provided by the earlier one.
The last book raised a lot of controversy but it is now widely accepted that a rewriting of history is indeed called for.
I find it strange that the authors of the three books mentioned here are all Indophile foreigners and wonder why Indian historians have not done this work,
I studied Indian History for my Graduate degree and what I now read is rather different from what I had studied way back in the mid sixties of the last century and thus I am now inclined to agree with Napoleon!
I have suggested this topic for the weekly LBC blog posts. You can see what the other writers of the LBC have to say in their respective blogs. Maria, Pravin, Ashok and Shackman.
We seem to be on the same page – single sourcing your facts is these days a dangerous thing to do. History hs always been written by the winners and thus spun their way.Interesting point that you cite Indian history written by non-Indians. Is there a chance they can be more objective than an Indian author and explain both sides of the matter?
shackman recently posted..History
Yes, that we are. Further confirmation comes from the comments from my nephew Craig elsewhere here.
I’m a history buff too. It’s fascinating that Trump is so clueless about U.S. history. Here’s a quote from November 6, 2016, just before the election:
“I went to an Ivy League school,” Trump told a crowd recently in St. Augustine, Florida. “I went to an Ivy League school. I’m very highly educated. I know words, I have the best words,” he said at a rally last December; Wharton, he said on Meet the Press, “is probably the hardest there is to get into,” adding, “Some of the great business minds in the world have gone to Wharton.”
While Hillary Clinton’s Wellesley College prepares for an election night jubilee, the mood at Donald Trump’s alma mater in West Philadelphia is closer to terrified.
— Why Penn Won’t Talk About Donald Trump — As Trump becomes the university’s most famous alum, campus leaders scramble to protect its brand.
As Trump would say, “Sad!” 🙁 Or id you don’t worry about the consequences, too funny.
Cheerful Monk recently posted..Quotes That Make Me Laugh
He is your President and I am not qualified to comment. As an ex admirer of the American people however, I can add that many of my friends and I feel sorry for Americans for having been given this new POTUS.
Hi Periappa. I found when studying for my history degree that it was often the historians who were not nationals of the country in question who were best able to be objective and bring a different perspective, untrammelled by the nationalist rhetoric we are all subject to at school (I specialised in American and British history but I am. Sure the same must hold true of Indian history too?). X
Hi you too Craig. I am delighted to see you commenting here and I hope that you will do so regularly henceforth. And I am further delighted that you concur with my opinion about outsiders being more objective.
I’m so glad I didn’t go to Penn—imagine having your hard earned degree being devalued by a bombastic ‘graduate’! Trump’s language, barring the claim that he knows ‘the best words’ is abysmal!
On the assumption that your comments are in response to Monk, I shall simply say, “No comments!” and request you to read my response to her.
I am always fascinated by different versions of history. My Mom is the history expert in our family, although I do enjoy it. Revisionist history. Interesting.
Revisionist history unfortunately is for old codgers like me who have the time to read!
History is also a perspective after all. Like every other perspective, it is vulnerable to mankind’s weak understanding of objectivity and even weaker practice of it.
http://www.importantindia.com/20320/the-child-is-the-father-of-man/
Add to it – where people came from in India?
http://www.heritagedaily.com/2017/05/movement-of-early-humans-into-the-indian-subcontinent/114792
wonder if there is a vice versa possibility too.
Did you read – Jesus lived in India by some German author Holger http://fkrt.it/epviO!NNNN 🙂
Okay, I shall investigate both. There is a strong belief in Kashmir that Jesus indeed lived there for a while.
I think most countries have suffered with mis-information – maybe because the publishing field was limited, or that certain avenues in a country’s life were not even imagined to be real or that an earlier settler actually did a whole of things. Sometimes, lorded people assume that certain earlier cultures didn’t have quite the resources that were bought into them by what might have been deemed “we are superior”
One of the avenues, that has arisen in NZ is the lack of heating/cooling in house building…our forebears came from many the northern hemisphere and they assumed because the sun most of the summer, building didn’t need to be so sturdy.
Not many home are or were insulated, very few had central heating – and we rely on portable heaters that usually do not “cut the mustard”
it has only been recently standardised that all new builds must have double window pane (can’t remember exact wording) I actually think that the replacement ranch/windows here might be a difficult glass because there is no condensation and the glass feels “warmer”
hoping that from early next week, house inside air will feel warmer after top/bottom inuslation installed….
That is an unusual angle towards settling in new places! Thank you.