Awakening The Story of the Bengal Renaissance Subrata Dasgupta 9788184001839 Books
Download As PDF : Awakening The Story of the Bengal Renaissance Subrata Dasgupta 9788184001839 Books
old arguments about religion, society, and the lives of women were overturned; great schools and colleges were created; new ideas surfaced in science. And all these changes were led by a handful of remarkable men and women. For the first time comes a gripping narrative about the Bengal Renaissance recounted through the lives of all its players from Rammohun Roy to Rabindranath Tagore. Immaculately researched, told with colour, drama, and passion, Awakening is a stunning achievement.
Awakening The Story of the Bengal Renaissance Subrata Dasgupta 9788184001839 Books
The Bengal Renaissance was a great flowering of vivid and socially insightful humanism, which occurred mostly in Calcutta following governor William Hastings' completion of the New Fort William in 1773. Over the next 100 years, Calcutta (and Bengal) became a center of art, literature, philosophy and science that firmly established it as India's cultural (as well as political) capital.In many ways, this story mirrors a similar one written in St. Petersburg, Russia during the same period. Yet, for some reason, the great Russian cultural awakening of the 18th and 19th centuries is well known to us, but the equally important Bengali development is not.
Much of this problem is due to the existing historical literature dedicated to the two topics. The Russian cultural renaissance, brought about by the cultural mingling of European and Russian peoples in St. Petersburg, is most often told as a great human story, a story of people trying to reconcile a "backward" past with an inevitably modern future. The Russian story is mostly told about the people, and the great works of human expression they produced.
An analagous social movement occurred in Bengal - primarily in Calcutta - driven by the juxtaposition of English institutions and sensibilities onto an intellectually restless local population. The problem is, it's rarely told that way. More often than not, Indian historians reduce the Bengal Renaissance down to the founding of Anglo-Indian academic institutions and the accomplishments of their respective Western-educated alumni, sometimes listed almost like a CV.
This book is no exception. Dr. Dasgupta does not deviate from this formula. He presents us with the minutae of the founding and function of this college and that college, but fails substantially in presenting this intellectual movement in broader humanistic, political and economic contexts. So, I know where and what all the Tagores studied in Calcutta, but I can't tell you, after reading this book, why it's important to human society. The author goes so far as to suggest that each of the great thinkers in Bengal who contributed to the Renaissance was simply a product of his or her formal education (re: pg. 203). I would suggest that it's rather more than that. The childhood biographies are nice, but we know where they all lead; to the college in Calcutta.
So, if you like your cultural history told essentially as the history of academic institutions and societies, you may like this book.
The author's writing style is clear enough, but he makes a dry thesis even drier by writing most of the narrative in a stilted, Victorian passive voice. Institutions "were founded" and literature "was written," etc... Well, we know that much. The important part is WHO did all this founding and writing, and WHY does it matter.
In summary, this book presents a great human story told in a most inanimate, unengaging way. There are better books on this subject. I recommend the various history monographs by Lakshmi Subramanian and Nitish Sengupta.
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Tags : Awakening: The Story of the Bengal Renaissance [Subrata Dasgupta] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. old arguments about religion, society, and the lives of women were overturned; great schools and colleges were created; new ideas surfaced in science. And all these changes were led by a handful of remarkable men and women. For the first time comes a gripping narrative about the Bengal Renaissance recounted through the lives of all its players from Rammohun Roy to Rabindranath Tagore. Immaculately researched,Subrata Dasgupta,Awakening: The Story of the Bengal Renaissance,Random House, India,8184001835,History Asia
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Awakening The Story of the Bengal Renaissance Subrata Dasgupta 9788184001839 Books Reviews
This book gives us narratives on making of religious, social and cultural reform movements in undivided Bengal province of the British India during the 19th and 20th centuries. These awakening movements subsequently helped in spreading of Swadeshi ideas and freedom struggles across the sub-continent. It is really engaging while reading this book.
The Bengal Renaissance was a great flowering of vivid and socially insightful humanism, which occurred mostly in Calcutta following governor William Hastings' completion of the New Fort William in 1773. Over the next 100 years, Calcutta (and Bengal) became a center of art, literature, philosophy and science that firmly established it as India's cultural (as well as political) capital.
In many ways, this story mirrors a similar one written in St. Petersburg, Russia during the same period. Yet, for some reason, the great Russian cultural awakening of the 18th and 19th centuries is well known to us, but the equally important Bengali development is not.
Much of this problem is due to the existing historical literature dedicated to the two topics. The Russian cultural renaissance, brought about by the cultural mingling of European and Russian peoples in St. Petersburg, is most often told as a great human story, a story of people trying to reconcile a "backward" past with an inevitably modern future. The Russian story is mostly told about the people, and the great works of human expression they produced.
An analagous social movement occurred in Bengal - primarily in Calcutta - driven by the juxtaposition of English institutions and sensibilities onto an intellectually restless local population. The problem is, it's rarely told that way. More often than not, Indian historians reduce the Bengal Renaissance down to the founding of Anglo-Indian academic institutions and the accomplishments of their respective Western-educated alumni, sometimes listed almost like a CV.
This book is no exception. Dr. Dasgupta does not deviate from this formula. He presents us with the minutae of the founding and function of this college and that college, but fails substantially in presenting this intellectual movement in broader humanistic, political and economic contexts. So, I know where and what all the Tagores studied in Calcutta, but I can't tell you, after reading this book, why it's important to human society. The author goes so far as to suggest that each of the great thinkers in Bengal who contributed to the Renaissance was simply a product of his or her formal education (re pg. 203). I would suggest that it's rather more than that. The childhood biographies are nice, but we know where they all lead; to the college in Calcutta.
So, if you like your cultural history told essentially as the history of academic institutions and societies, you may like this book.
The author's writing style is clear enough, but he makes a dry thesis even drier by writing most of the narrative in a stilted, Victorian passive voice. Institutions "were founded" and literature "was written," etc... Well, we know that much. The important part is WHO did all this founding and writing, and WHY does it matter.
In summary, this book presents a great human story told in a most inanimate, unengaging way. There are better books on this subject. I recommend the various history monographs by Lakshmi Subramanian and Nitish Sengupta.
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