Irfan Habib: A Biographical Note

As he enters his 90s, Irfan Habib has just embarked on a new book on the history of the great Mughal emperor Akbar. The book will be part of the People’s History of India series, a project that has consumed much of his time in the past few years. Though this is a period and personality he has written on, the new work will most definitely offer fresh material and perspective. As a historian, his has been an unrelenting quest to enlarge the frontiers of history by seeking truth from facts. The results of this dedication to his subject lie in the vast corpus of his academic contributions that range over a timeline stretching from the ancient to the modern periods of India’s history.