Publication

This book is a tribute to Swami Vivekananda on the occasion of his 150^th Birth Anniversary.  It is not just a glory book.  It critically unfolds various aspects of Swami Vivekananda’s life and work – the Trinity of Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Ma Sarada, and Swami Vivekananda which jointly constitutes the essence of Ramakrishna order of Neo-Hinduism.  It spells out the message of Neo-Hinduism.  This religion was nothing but universal humanism of Vedanta.  The militant patriots took the queue of their radicalism and revolution of Swamiji’s message.  This book highlights these linkages.

This is yet another evaluation of Tagore’s genius by experts to get at the depth of Tagore’s creativity – a welcome break from the monotony of Tagore worship

This is an inter-disciplinary work to explore and assess the roots of scientific enquiry through the prism of nationalism.  This opens up an emerging area of study open for both scientists and social scientists.

When Dr. S.P. Sen suddenly expired in 1979 all his students, colleagues and admirers sent their heartfelt obituaries which has now been gathered in a handsome book edited by Professor Chittabrata Palit.  It reveals the versatility of Dr. S.P. Sen, the founder of the Institute of Historical Studies.

This is a book of junior talents who throw light on the hidden qualities of Adivasis who have been treated as museum pieces of changeless India.

All members of the Institute of Historical Studies rejoiced when the centenary of the founding Director of the Institute of Historical Studies, Dr. S.P. Sen was celebrated in a national seminar and the proceedings was gathered by the current Director Prof. Chittabrata Palit which will be called a golden book of Dr. S.P. Sen.  It has the first section on Reminiscences, the second on the French in India, the third on Historiography and the fourth and final on “Biography as History” written by eminent historians of India on all these aspects.  It has already become a collector’s item.

Kanchannagar is geographically located in between the river Banka and the river Damodar.  The indigenous cutlery industry of Kanchannagar is one of the finest examples of folk technology in West Bengal.  The aim of the book is to construct the evolution of folk technology in the perspective of time and space.

This book comprises 12 articles on Dalit Movement in Bengal contributed by several scholars.  Many facets of Dalit history, religious customs of the Santals, comparative study of the political thought of Phule and Ambedkar, status of literacy among the Dalits in Jangalmahal in West Bengal, changing nature of the Dalit food practice, marginalization of the Dalits in the phase of modernization, Dalit welfare as reflected in Ambedkar’s economic thought, Ambedkar as the modern Indian reformer of the Dalit movement, ideology of the Dalit movement etc. among others have been critically discussed in great details.

The author examines the so-called tribal raids in North-East India as anti-colonial resistance movement snowballing into the broader nationalist movement in India.  Sometimes these kinds of movements are examples of militant nationalism.

The book comprises 15 articles contributed by eminent academicians and research scholars.  The book deals with various aspects of the activities and thought of Sister nivedita in the light of her 150^th Birth anniversary.  New aspect of Nivedita’s engagement with Buddhism, Indian Art and Nivedita, Nivedita and Sri Jagadish Chandra Bose, Nivedita’s role in Indian Freedom, Nivedita and Indian Revolutionaries in anti-British National Movement, Nivedita: A Symbol of Women’s Power, Nivedita in the vision of Swami Vivekananda, Nivedita and Hindu Civilisation etc. among others have been critically discussed.

As the title indicates, it is an account of the contact and interaction between the North and the South (from the geographical point of view) in Indian history through the ages.  It is a myth to claim that the two regions of India lived in isolation, specially in pre-British times, and developed on their separate lines.  The theme was undertaken to clear up the general misconceptions and examine from the facts of history throughout the ages the constant and meaningful interaction between the North and the South

The volume aims at studying the historical writings on the nationalist movement including a survey of the source materials available in different parts of India in different languages.  Though the nationalist movement in India was in one sense a common movement for all parts of India of the country, there were wide differences between province and province in the nature, motivation, timing and intensity of struggle.  In this volume the regional differences have been taken into account and a glimpse of the contents will show that two papers on Bengal and one each on Bihar, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Goa have been included.

The volume aims at bringing out the social background and social objectives of the numerous Religious Reform movements in India from the ancient times to the present day and to ascertain the extent to which the social objectives had been ultimately achieved.  Needless to assert that every religious reform movement rises out of certain socio-economic conditions.  Religion, as anything else, is a part of the social milieu.  The present volume is not primarily concerned with the theological part of the religious movements, but it tries to trace the social perspectives as well as social aims and objectives.

The main aim of the present work is to trace and assess in depth the growth of a branch of literature in different Indian languages from the earliest to the modern times, in so far as it concerned biographies of historical importance.  Like any other branch of literature or of history, historical biography has passed through a long process of evolution.  The papers published in this volume have studied this evolution together with a critical and balanced assessment of their merits and limitations.

The primary objective of this multi-volumed publication is to help advanced students of history in getting to know the wealth of historical source material lying scattered in different parts of the country and in different languages.  But the important objective is to ascertain the extent to which the available source material had been utilized by historians and the gaps that still remains to be filled up.  It is the most important and valuable contribution to the compilation of source material for Indian history as a whole.

It is well known that the story of the expansion of Europe beyond the geographic limits of the continent is one of the most exciting and significant episodes in world history.  It is important and relevant to look into the impact of the colonial policy and practice as followed by the western powers in India.  Their impact was definitely affecting almost all walks of life of the country.  The volume one covers four important sections – Agriculture and Land Settlement, Industry and Trade, Administration and Political Development and Religion, Culture and Literature.  The second volume deals with British, French and Portuguese colonial policies and their impact on the Indian society.

The present volume, a collection of 40 papers is a comprehensive volume on the Public Association in India from the early part of the 19th century till independence.

The present volume deals with the entire Himalayan Belt from the north-eastern to the north-western extremity of India.  It has brought out the close historical links of the different sectors of the Himalayan frontier with the rest of India.

The Dictionary of National Biography in four volumes brought out by S.P. Sen covered the period between 1800 and 1947.  A far sighted academician as he was, S.P. Sen planned a Supplementary to the original series to cover the first twenty-five years after Independence, 1947-1972.  In the Supplementary Dictionary living personalities were included who made significant contributions to any walk of Indian life.  The Institute has published 3 volumes of SDNB so far.

The first volume of ‘A Descriptive Classified Catalogue of Christian Records in Calcutta and Abroad’ published in 1986 contains after a detailed introduction of survey of the records of nine important Christian Institutions.  Its volume Two published in 1988 contains twelve other renowned Christian organizations.  The records surveyed in these two volumes form the gems of the missionary archives and refer to numerous and varied socio-political developments in India in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The so called militant nationalist movement which constitutes the subject matter of this publication really marked an important phase in the history of the growth of political consciousness in India.  Through sober analysis, this book proves that though the importance of Gandhi’s mass movement can not be underrated, the revolutionary nationalists must be given a large share of the credit for bringing about political liberation from the foreign yoke.  This publication also shows that militant nationalism was not merely restricted to Bengal – Punjab – Maharashtra, as generally believed, it touched many areas in North and South India and many sections of Indian society hitherto unknown.

The monograph deals with Gandhi’s contribution to the freedom struggle.  It will provoke the readers to form their own estimates of Gandhi.  Gandhi’s idea of trusteeship, his philosophy of rural reconstruction, his views about the peasantry, labour, caste and religious issues, women question, environmental issues, international understanding – all these issues are analysed in detail.

In the eighteenth century Bengal was outwardly Mughal.  Inwardly it was turning into a British protectorate.  In this process it suffered from a double scourage – the failure of the Bengal Nawabs to defend their kingdom from external attacks and internal subversions and the predatory lust of the English East India Company operating for territorial and commercial gains from behind the mask of a mercantile company.  This process of urbanization stopped Bengal’s urbanization.  The Mughal urbanization of Bengal now came to an end.  It was in this situation that Calcutta emerged.  But Calcutta was not an upcoming city upto the middle of 18th century.  Calcutta’s urbanization was not a very impressive phenomenon.  Gasping in a labour-short and capital-short economy Calcutta could not tale long strides in urbanization.  Thus, stagnation was marked in Calcutta in the eighteenth century and Ranjit Sen’s book has studied this phenomenon of stagnation.

The present monograph primarily based on data from Chinese sources analyses the possibility of having an integrated approach for the uplift of the economy of Northeast India by making judicious use of the resources of the region in collaboration with the contiguous areas of South and South-west China.   

The purpose of this volume is to examine the role of Mahatma Gandhi in the removal of untouchability as a problem of national importance and assess his overall contribution to the uplift of the depressed classes.  A remarkable attempt has been made to examine the character of Gandhian movement for the depressed classes and Gandhi’s differences with the British and depressed classes spokeman like B.R. Ambedkar on the question of their amelioration as also to highlight the ultimate outcome of the interaction of the divergent approaches.

Assam was constituted into a province by the British rulers of India to meet the colonial needs of a viable province in the Northeastern part of their Indian empire.  The creation of a province by putting together historically, culturally and linguistically disperable areas, it is argued, was responsible for ethnic and linguistic conflicts in Assam before and after the independence of India and the creation of new States in the post-independence period.

The articles published in the present compilation endeavoured to throw light on certain aspects or phases of India’s maritime trade in different periods of her history.  The bargaining capacity of the Indian producers and merchants has been properly underscored.

This urban study of past and present provides a panorama of the process of urbanization and its impact on society and culture through the ages.  The political, economic, social, cultural and even medical and feminist themes have been tackled in this volume.

The volume is composed of articles presented in a seminar at the Institute and some invited papers.  It covers the whole universe of folk culture in transition and will surely be a collector’s item.

In this volume, three articles on each section: ancient, medieval and modern India have been included.  In the first section on ancient India, critical issues like feudalism and transition from status to contract, formation of state with roots of oriental despotism have been examined.  Early stages of urbanization and town planning have also been addressed. In the second section on medieval India, imperial decline due to personal incompetence of rulers and institutional decay have been highlighted.  The hierarchical policy and the tax burden on primary producers produced a fractured Central State which in turn led to the formation of segmented states.  But with the growth of trade and commerce and resultant urbanization the potential for capitalist development came to play.  Foreign trade boosted it.  These issues are in focus in this section. In the section on modern India, further development of urbanization with its negative side, colonial deforestation balanced by efficient forest conservation, proletarianisation and politicization of industrial labour have been covered.  Thus this volume becomes a significant contribution to Indian historiography.

Netaji has been a living icon of Indian history and contemporary India.  In this present crisis of loss of values in life Netaji remains a role model for future generations.  It is therefore necessary to reassess Netaji’s life and achievements.  The rainbow character of Netaji’s activities are well brought out in this final collection and it is certain to be a big draw for the reading public.

Historical perspective has drastically changed from purely political history to subaltern studies.  Of late, it is veering towards the old faithful history of culture and religion.  The ugly face of global capitalism has prompted societies to trace the religious and cultural roots of civilizations for enforcement of identity and sustenance.  The reading public all over the world are on the look for a book on the religion and culture of any old civilization.  In this context, a book on the religion and culture of India is very much welcome.  This survey is a treasure trove of such values studied religion by region.  All the contributors are specialists in the history of their respective regions and the book ultimately becomes a grand cultural mosaic of mother India.  The book has two sections on religion and culture with suitable sub-headings.

The book comprises 12 researched papers dealing with various aspects of Natural Calamities in colonial Bengal.  Human factors in natural disaster, 1737 and 1864 cyclone, famine of 1770, devastating famine of 1943, comparative study of famines in Bengal and Japan, women victims of Bengal famine, ‘Fani’ cyclone etc., among others have been critically discussed in details.

The monograph highlights how the history of the Marathas was used as an aid by the western educated intellectuals in disseminating nationalism in colonial Bengal.  In the process the exercise on the subject touched upon the sensitive issues like inter-communal relationship, gender question, inter-provincial contact and created an exclusive cuisine catering to the need of the urban as well as rural reading milieu.

This book is an in-depth enagement with the study of some aspects of Indian historigraphy. The sepctrum of the work has been formed by eight essays written by some eminent historians of the country. In this volume Ancient India Art, Science and Technology in Ancient India, Women in Early India, Environmental History, Sufi Saints and Sufi Doctrines, Medieval Indian Painting, Tribal Movement in Colonial India, Resistance to Colonial Rule in india have been addressed.

This monograph is a compedium of eleven papers covering in details the diverse facets of lterary creation of Ashaprna Devi so that readers may have opportnity to appreciate the unique contribution of Ashapurna Devi to the desired social changes for women which has evident in the present Indian Scenrio is yet to be achived.

This volume covers eminent Indian historians who had contributed to the ancient and medieval perod of Indian history.

This volume covers both eminent Indian historians who had contributed to the modern period of Indian history and the distingished British historians who have made significant contribution to the Indian historical Sutdies.

The present volume consisting of twenty three essays written by competent scholars in an exercise in finding out the true relation approaches to problems and finally in their structuring relations between the two disciplines, history and literature.

Essays on the History of Indian Medical History with special reference  to Karnataka, Ed. By Dr. K.G. Vasanthamadhava, 2022, Rs. 450/-

Cloudy Kashmir in Search of a Golden Sunrise by Dr. Rupak Ghoshal, 2023, Rs. 700/- 

The District of Howrah: Exploration of Selected Cultural Traits byDr. Samhita Chaudhuri, Dr. Karabi Mitra & Dr. Rituparna Basu, 2024, Rs. 300/-