HISTORY OF JAIPUR, A

by Jadunath Sarkar

ONE OF THE BEST STUDIES OF AN INDIAN STATE. BASED ON PRIMARY DOCUMENTS. INTERVIEWS

Genres: History

Paperback

First published May 1, 1984

About the author

Sir Jadunath Sarkar was a prominent Indian Bengali aristocrat and historian.

Reviews

[James Empson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m not saying that the book isn’t full of information, but it is really hard to digest the interminable progression of battles (with dates!) between this clan and that tribe during periods of Mughal and Maratha dominance. There is a moment of clarity in the text with the arrival of British interests, but the author seems at pains to fawn somewhat to colonial administrators pandering to the Rajahs of Jaipur, with little critical analysis of policy. Finally the book ends with an overview of the state of Jaipur circa 1940 that has all the excitement one might expect of such dry material and the author manages to make it as dry as possible!
I will confess that my initial ignorance of the subject matter did not make reading the book any easier, nor did my lack of understanding of many terms which appear as standard in the Indian variant of English, but not elsewhere.
In sum, rather than republishing this book, scholars and publishers would have done better to rewrite the entire piece with the object of presenting a true “history of Jaipur” for the modern reader, in place of the current work which is little more than a “catalog of events”.