Manohar Publishers and Distributors: 08/05/12

05 August, 2012

Warfare in Ancient India: Organizational and Operational Dimensions

By- Uma Prasad Thapliyal

The military History of Ancient India has not attracted the attention of scholars in sufficient measure. Naturally, not many good books are available on the subject. Consequently, Indians know little about the military system followed by their ancestors. A serious effort, is therefore, needed to analyse and interpret the source material which lies scattered in ancient Indian literature, including scriptures and archaeological remains including inscriptions and coins, to produce a tangible thesis on the subject. This book is an humble effort in that direction.

The book tries to present a complete picture of Indian military system from the earliest times. The topics covered include military organization, conduct of war, strategical and tactical concepts, weapons and armour, fortification, education and training and ceremonials. Some ancillary aspects related to war such as defence production, logistics, intelligence, medical services, engineering, signals, etc., have also been covered.

The study is based on historical data. The myths and legends if not supported by historical evidence have been ignored. Each chapter is a complete study and is intended to generate a new thinking on the subject among lay readers and scholars alike.

Born in 1938, U.P. Thapiyal retired as the Director of the History Division, Ministry of Defence, Government of India.

ISBN 978-81-7304-842-5 2010 432p. Rs.1050/ Pounds 60

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Twilight of the Pepper Empire: Portuguese Trade in Southwest India in the Early Seventeenth Century

By- A.R. Disney

This study of the Portuguese commercial empire in India during the Hapsburg years is the most serious attempt yet made to analyse the Old Portuguese pepper trade – from the planting of orchards in the foothills of Malabar and Kanara to the unloading of spice-laden carracks in Lisbon. Equally significant, it is the first book to explain how and why the Portuguese were not able to modernize their trade system when faced with crisis conditions.

The distress that confronted the Portuguese following the arrival of the Dutch and English, seen here as partly military but fundamentally economic and organizational, reached its decisive stage in the 1620s and the early 1630s. The Portuguese attempted to combat the crisis by creating their own India Company. The story of that company and the reasons of its failure are thoroughly investigated as Disney looks at its antecedents, composition, activities, and weaknesses.

The author has unearthed much new statistical material from widely scattered manuscript sources and in doing so sheds new light on related problems and issues, such as institutional relations between Spain and Portugal, the careers of individual merchants, and the nature and difficulties of viceregal government in Portuguese India.

A.R. Disney is Senior Lecturer, Department of History, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia.

ISBN 978-81-7304-881-4 2010 234p. Rs.695/ Pounds 55

The Uprising of 1857: Before and Beyond

By- Kaushik Roy (ed.)

Most studies of the 1857 Uprising look at the causes, the course of events, and the consequences. This edited volume takes a different approach. It goes before 1857 and focuses on the first half of the nineteenth century to look for the presence of long-term structural factors (if any) behind the momentous events of 1857. Several contributors have studied the late nineteenth century in order to understand the impact of the Uprising on Indian society and mentality. Spatially too the contributors to this volume go beyond India to locate 1857 within the emerging trend of global history.

The essayists do not fall within any single school. The heterogeneous outlook of the contributors is indeed a strength of this volume as it widens the methodological traits and empirical base of essays. Hence, the 1857 Uprising (itself a neutral term) is considered by some contributors as a Sepoy Rebellion and for others it was an Indian Mutiny. Another contribution of this edited volume is a comprehensive bibliography that will help scholars in further research.

Kaushik Roy is an Associate Researcher at the Centre for the Study of Civil War (CSCW) at International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO). He is also a Lecturer in the Department of History, Presidency College, Kolkata.

ISBN 978-81-7304-891-3 2010 294p. Rs.795/ Pounds 45

Surviving Against Odds: The Marginalized in a Globalizing World

By- Debal K. SinghaRoy

Though many of the pre-existing processes of marginalization are getting weakened with the expansion of the democratic and liberal forces, several new dimensions of marginalization are in the making and old ones are also getting reinforced in the wake of globalization. This collection of essays with reputed scholars from India, United States of America, United Kingdom and the Czech Republic critically examines the changing forms and dimensions of marginalization in a globalized world, the emerging nature of intertwining of caste, race and gender inequality with marginalization, the nature and forms of marginalization of the tribes, dalits, religious minorities, peasants and children. Also the middle class, new service users in contemporary society, and the process of articulation of protest of the marginalized at the grass roots.

This collection would be of immense use to the students, researchers, teachers of sociology, political science, economics, history, social psychology and development studies, and also to the civil society activists, planners, executives and politicians dealing with the issues of social development, marginalization and social exclusion.

Debal K. SinghaRoy is Professor of Sociology, in the Department of Sociology, School of Social Sciences, Indira Gandhi National Open University.

ISBN 978-81-7304-877-7 2010 412p. Rs.995/ Pounds 60

The Steppe in History: Essays on a Eurasian Fringe

By- Suchandana Chatterjee

The Steppe deserves to be treated as a special category in Eurasian history not because of its Russianized environment but because of its Asiatic image. The speciality of the Steppe has also received fair treatment in recent times. The present study deals with varied impressions about the Steppe domain. It takes into account the interconnected aspects of Steppe history, highlighting features of Kazakh and Siberian domains that have relevance outside the Russian mould. The purpose has been to integrate the intertwined histories of the two domains and indicates continuities and discontinuities of two overlapping strands of history-writing, Soviet and post-Soviet.

The study is concerned with both Soviet and post-Soviet approaches, the former expressing a predictable set of opinions and the latter questioning them. The stereotypical idea of the Steppe as a region a region that was the citadel of nomadic conquerors and barbaric raiders and distanced from the locus of imperial power tends to get replaced by positive images of the Steppe as an interactive space that lies on the south of Russia and overlaps with Mongolian and Chinese borderlands.

Suchandana Chatterjee is Fellow, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata. Her research interests include regional and connected histories of Eurasia, marginalized identities, representations of Eurasia’s transition, etc.

ISBN 978-81-7304-882-1 2010 178p. Rs.495/ Pounds 35