The Clash of Chronologies: Ancient India in the Modern World

The Clash of Chronologies shows the crucial value of the ancient period of Indian history for understanding India’s deep history. In this valuable volume, Thomas Trautmann makes this connection with great acuity through a series of studies, on topics including the contrasting theories of time and history in India and Europe, persistent codes of kinship and marriage between north and south India, the conjuncture of ancient Indian and European traditions of language analysis in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, legacies of European scholars of India’s deep rich history such as Sir William Jones and A.L. Basham, and structures of the Indian State.