A radical contribution to the understanding of Indian history as a discipline, this book explores the politics of history-writing in modern India. It narrates the engagement of a civilisation with the historical sensibility and modaility. In doing so, it asserts that history, in order to be understood better, has to deploy the language of the layperson in India, and interact with the mythic, the a historical, and the folk. This edition has a new afterword, in which the author sums up some of the important developments in current debates on history-writing.