{"product_id":"somanatha-the-many-voices-of-a-history-9781784780654","title":"Somanatha: The Many Voices of a History","description":"In 1026, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni raided the Hindu temple of Somanatha (Somnath in textbooks of the colonial period). The story of the raid has reverberated in Indian history, but largely during the raj. It was first depicted as a trauma for the Hindu population not in India, but in the House of Commons. The triumphalist accounts of the event in Turko-Persian chronicles became the main source for most eighteenth-century historians. It suited everyone and helped the British to divide and rule a multi-millioned subcontinent. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn her new book, Romila Thapar, the doyenne of Indian historians, reconstructs what took place by studying other sources, including local Sanskrit inscriptions, biographies of kings and merchants of the period, court epics and popular narratives that have survived. The result is astounding and undermines the traditional version of what took place. These findings also contest the current Hindu religious nationalism that constantly utilises the conventional version of this history.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRomila Thapar\u003c\/b\u003e is Emeritus Professor in History at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. She has served as visiting professor at Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania and is currently the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South at the Library of Congress. Among her previous books are \u003ci\u003eAshoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, Indian Tales, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Penguin History of Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Verso","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50363122286866,"sku":"9781784780654","price":22.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_188cace6-d442-4d2e-a0a6-b75870b79a2f.jpg?v=1728404961","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/somanatha-the-many-voices-of-a-history-9781784780654","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}