Social History of the Deccan, 1300-1761: Eight Indian Lives Book

The challenge in reading history is that it could easily become a mind-numbing series of who blinded, deposed, imprisoned, or married whom, with names, places and dates running into one another. Making history both accessible and a ripping good tale is a tall order in general. Doing it in a way that allows readers to make sense of all the available facts while informing them of the many contrasting views is neither easy nor common, certainly in India.

Richard Eaton's A Social History Of The Deccan, 1300-1761: Eight Indian Lives does a great job of this difficult task. First and foremost, it tells a good tale, with eight historical figures in the foreground and history narrated around their - at times sparse - personal stories. The methodology of telling a historical figure's story - or social history - around which the events of history flow, makes it easier to follow, as well as want to stay with it. The nitpickers among us can always argue whether these were the best eight characters to pick - others may wonder if the author was being politically correct in picking an Andhra warrior (or two), a Sufi saint, an Ethiopian slave, an Iranian nobleman, a Maratha queen and a non-brahmin saint - almost one for every demographic. Yet this choice of characters itself says more about the melting pot that was the Deccan of the 14th-17th century than all the other books we've read.

A longer review of this book is available on our blog.