India & Cambridge - Cambridge University Press India

HISTORY/ ARCHAEOLOGYFoundations of ModernSocietyRajiva WijesinhaThis book introduces studentsto ideas, events andpersonalities that have createdthe present-day world. Thisbook thus attempts to set themout in a way that challengesyoung-adult minds. It is hopedthat this book will enthusethem to explore the reasons forand the results of importanthistorical developments.Rajiva Wijesinha is Professor of Languages atSabaramaguwa University.9788175962446 75pp PB ` 145.00Telangana People’sStruggle and its LessonsP. SundarayyaBeginning with an account of thefeudal oppression in the Nizam’sfiefdom and the organization ofthe masses against the backdropof the national movement,Sundarayya recounts the shapingof an alternate nationalism thatgave particular emphasis to thestruggles of the depressed classes.It was this decided focus under theleadership of the Communist Party which spurred theuprising.Given his intimate association with the Communist Partyand the Telangana Struggle, Sundarayya is able to provide adetailed description of the intricacies both of decisionmakingand the execution of plans by various guerillasquads. The book provides a ringside view of the movementof squads, the network of communications and the policeterror as if a camera were following the course of events. Thefact that this edition of the book arrives more than fivedecades after the movement has done little to dim theelectric that surrounded the years in the forest fighting theNizam’s forces and later the Indian army.P. Sundarayya served as the General Secretary of CPI (M) formore than a decade.9788175963160 472pp HB ` 695.00ARCHAEOLOGYThe Ancient IndusUrbanism, Economy, andSocietyRita P. WrightThis early civilization was erasedfrom human memory until 1924,when it was rediscovered andannounced in the IllustratedLondon Times. Our understandingof the Indus has been partiallyadvanced by textual sources fromMesopotamia that containreferences to Meluhha, a landidentified by cuneiform specialists as the Indus, with whichthe ancient Mesopotamians traded and engaged in battles.In this volume, Rita P. Wright uses both Mesopotamian textsbut principally the results of archaeological excavations andsurveys to draw a rich account of the Indus civilization’swell-planned cities, its sophisticated alterations to thelandscape, and the complexities of its agrarian and craftproducingeconomy. She focuses principally on the socialnetworks established between city and rural communities;farmers, pastoralists, and craft producers; and Indusmerchants and traders and the symbolic imagery that thecivilization shared with contemporary cultures in Iran,Mesopotamia, Central Asia, and the Persian Gulf region.Broadly comparative, her study emphasizes theinterconnected nature of early societies.Rita P. Wright is associate professor of anthropology at NewYork University.55 B&W illustrations 11 maps9781107000261 416pp HB ` 995.00The Archaeology of HinduRitual: Temples and theEstablishment of the GodsMichael WillisIn this groundbreaking study,Michael Willis examines how thegods of early Hinduism came to beestablished in temples, how theircults were organized, and how theruling elite supported theirworship. Examining the emergenceof these key historicaldevelopments in the fourth andfifth centuries, Willis combines Sanskrit textual evidencewith archaeological data from inscriptions, sculptures,temples, and sacred sites. The centrepiece of this study isUdayagiri in central India, the only surviving imperial site ofthe Gupta dynasty. Through a judicious use of landscapearchaeology and archaeo-astronomy, Willis reconstructshow Udayagiri was connected to the Festival of the RainySeason and the Royal Consecration. Through his meticulousstudy of the site, its sculptures and its inscriptions, Willisshows how the Guptas presented themselves as universalsovereigns and how they advanced new systems ofreligious patronage that shaped the world of medievalIndia.18 order online at www.cambridgeindia.org