Precolonial India in Practice: Society, Region, and Identity in Medieval Andhra. This item is unavailable.Precolonial India in Practice: Society, Region, and Identity in Medieval Andhra

The society of traditional India is frequently characterized as static and dominated by caste. This study challenges older interpretations, arguing that medieval India was actually a time of dynamic change and fluid social identities. Using records of religious endowments from Andhra Pradesh, author Cynthia Talbot reconstructs a regional society of the precolonial past as it existed in practice.

... rich, nuanced, and persuasive depiction of a fluid, changing Andhra world. (American Historical Review)

From her far-reaching exploration of the Kakatiya material, Talbot offers an important critique of existing scholarship in medieval Indian history and suggests promising directions for reenvisioning this history. (American Historical Review)

Talbot's medieval India is dynamic with expanding commerce, increasing numbers of religious institutions and several evolving political systems ... What she reveals bears excellent comparison with Richard Eaton's Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier ... Quite remarkably for a first monograph, it is a real page-turner. Epigraphical research, requiring no little skill, has been combined with a flair for exposition and constant attention to arguments, great and small, in the field, to produce a gripping work of scholarship ... It is an excellent candidate to help build that much-needed bridge between the "early modern histories" of Europe and South India. (Francis Robinson, Times Literary Supplement)