A history, and not a hagiography, of the Progressive Cultural Movement in India was long overdue, but nobody attempted to undertake such a novel and noble task, as if (this is exclusively my perception) there was nothing to talk about…
The life of Georg Lukács (1885–1971), the outstanding Marxist theorist, intersected so closely with the major revolutionary events of his time that it almost constitutes a history of the twentieth-century European proletarian revolutionary movement. Joining the Hungarian Communist Party in…
Georg Lukács is one of the best-known Marxist intellectuals of the twentieth century. He acquired this reputation during the 1960s, when so-called western Marxism was considered a centrepiece of intellectual debate and with which it was necessary to be familiar…
Georg Lukács places the issue of form at the centre of his early book The Theory of the Novel, and views form as integral to the humanist approach. In this context, he suggests categories such as nature, human consciousness and…
Translated by Nausheen Jaffery, edited by Swapna Liddle, New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2017, 172 pages, Rs 650 The publication in 2017 of the English translation of Sair-ul-Manazil by Tulika Books is part of a journey that began 197 years ago.…
Prabhat Kumar Shukla, Neel ki Kheti aur Angrezi Raj: Bihar mein Kisano ka Pratirodh 1780–1917 (Hindi), Anamika, New Delhi, 2017, 190 pages + Appendix, Bibliography, Glossary and Index, Rs 550 Most scholarly works in the social sciences in India continue…
The last few weeks have been quite tragic for our journal. We lost our book review editor Biswamoy Pati, a brilliant historian at Delhi University, a popular teacher, and a person of boundless energy who brought young historians together to…
Jasodhara Bagchi, Interrogating Motherhood, Sage and Stree, 2017, 140 pages,Rs 295 This posthumous book revives grief over the untimely death, on 9 January 2015, of its author, Jasodhara Bagchi. However, it is also a matter of great happiness for her…
The lead article by K.M. Shrimali in the current issue of Social Scientist traces the development of religious identities in India over a long span of nearly four millennia. It explores the material conditions underlying this development, such as for…
Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, The Colonial State: Theory and Practice, Primus, Delhi, 2016, 228 pages, Rs 1495 Professor Sabyasachi Bhattacharya investigates the concept ‘colonial’ and the definition of ‘colonial state’ in this book. He explores various aspects of state sovereignty and subjecthood…