Tumultuous Times: Crisis, Culture and the City of Shahjahanabad in the Eighteenth Century

To say that the eighteenth century is one of the few periods of Indian history that continues to engender extensive polemics and valuable scholarship, is now somewhat of a cliché. Yet it continues to hold true. As if the almost complete transformation of the political map of Hindustan, rise of new political groups and foreign invasions were not enough to make the eighteenth century appear as immensely fascinating, this was also the period when the English East India Company emerged as a major player in the politics of Hindustan, laying as some scholars would argue, the foundation for the later colonisation of the country. In other words, what makes this period a center of a rather fascinating debate is that the eighteenth century brackets events that are seen as major turning points in Indian history.