HISTORIOGRAPHY: PAST AND PRESENT

Among the social sciences, history is the only discipline dating back to the very dawn of civilization, maintaining its unbroken hold on human mind. Of late, however, it is passing through an existential crisis being confronted with powerful projection of the past in electronic media and intense attacks mounted by the postmodernists rejecting its claim to authenticity and objectivity. It is time professional historians should do some self-introspection so as to evolve required responses by sensitizing the student and teacher community in India to the makeover of history from its unidimensional “grand narrative” character to a multi-dimensional meta-narrative perspective on the past. The eternal and irreconcilable dichotomy between the past in the absolute and its relative character in representations done down the ages constitutes the fundamental and fascinating theme uniting this anthology of articles. The contributions by their very purpose and nature are freelance essays from competent scholars commissioned especially to concretize the nebulous nature of each model by clear and concise presentation so as to be of equal interest to the students, teachers as well as general readers.