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A revised and updated edition of Willem van Schendel's state-of-the-art history, revealing the vibrant and colourful past of Bangladesh.
List of contents
List of Plates; List of Maps and Figures; Acknowledgements; Timeline; Preface to second edition; Introduction; Part I. The Long View; 1. A land of water and silt; 2. Jungle, fields, cities and states; 3. A region of multiple frontiers; 4. The delta as a crossroads; Part II. Colonial Encounters; 5. From the Mughal empire to the British empire; 6. British legacies; 7. A closing agrarian frontier; 8. Colonial conflicts; 9. Towards Partition; 10. Partition; 11. Population exchange; Part III. Becoming East Pakistan; 12. The Pakistan experiment; 13. Pakistan falls apart; 14. East Pakistani livelihoods; 15. The roots of aid dependence; 16. A new elite and cultural renewal; Part IV. War and the Birth of Bangladesh; 17. Armed conflict; 18. A state is born; 19. Imagining a new nation; Part V. Independent Bangladesh; 20. Shaping a political system; 21. The triumph of identity politics; 22. Transnational linkages; 23. Boom or bust?; 24. Gender movements; 25. A national culture?; Conclusions; Bangladesh district maps; Key political figures since 1947; Glossary of Bengali terms; Notes; Bibliography; Index
About the author
Willem van Schendel served as Professor of Modern Asian History at the University of Amsterdam.
Summary
This revised and updated edition reveals the vibrant, colourful past of Bangladesh, chiefly known in the West through media images of poverty, underdevelopment and disasters. Based on the latest academic research and richly illustrated, this is a fascinating and highly readable account of life in Bangladesh over the last two millennia.
