Indian Pasts (A History of India)

FAIN: FZ-280011-21

Audrey Truschke
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Newark (Newark, NJ 07104-3010)

Research and writing of a book on the history of South Asia from 2600 BCE to the early 2020s, highlighting India's dynamic religious and cultural changes.

I propose to write a single volume history of India that spans 4,600 years of known human history on the subcontinent. The book will proceed roughly chronologically, covering some of the major social, political, religious, intellectual, and cultural developments in ancient, early modern, colonial, and independent South Asia. Several threads will tie the book together, including religious and political innovations, ecological change, an astonishing diversity of peoples and experiences, and connections between South Asia and other parts of the world. My goal is to change how people view India. I want them to see, not an inert place that stands out of time, but rather a dynamic, vibrant part of the history of human advancement, achievement, and change.