Asian History

Indian History

This is a brief guide to the material available to Boston College faculty and students on subjects in Asian in history (understood including central, south, east, and south-east Asia).

Reference Shelf

This page provides access points to BC's subscriptions to reference material on Indian history. Here, you can find resources for finding definitions (e.g., dictionaries); suggested scholarly material (e.g., bibliographies); as well as background material and explanations written by experts in their fields (e.g., encyclopedia and handbooks).

What's on This Page

This page has a lot on it. You can use the following anchors (links down the page) to jump straight to a relevant box.

Find Definitions

Oxford Reference Online
This is a quick go-to for high-quality, short, dictionary style descriptions, definitions, facts, and figures. Great for date and name checking.

India Specific

Historical dictionary of medieval India by Iqtidar Alam Khan
Call Number: HathiTrust
Publication Date: 2008
A Dictionary of Politics and International Relations in India
Call Number: Oxford Reference Premium Collection
Publication Date: 2019

Language

Digital Dictionaries of South Asia
A collection of access points to online dictionaries for more than a dozen languages spoken in South Asia, including Urdu, Nepali, and more.

Find Scholarly Sources

There are catalogs and indices, which list scholarly literature and then there are bibliographies with recommended of literature.

Bibliographies

Oxford Bibliographies Online
Access to Boston College's subscriptions to Oxford's bibliographies on subjects such as Anthropology; Hinduism; Islamic Studies; Geography; Ecology, and more.

Catalogs

Digital South Asia Library
Digital library of images, maps, reference sources and more, supported by the University of Chicago and CRL
South Asian Union Catalog
An historical bibliography describing books and periodicals published in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, colonial Burma, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka from 1556 through the present and a union catalogue of holdings.

Find Background Information

Oxford Research Encyclopedias: Asian History.
Call Number: Oxford Research Encyclopedias
Publication Date: 2016+
"Substantive, peer-reviewed, and regularly updated, the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History combines the speed and flexibility of digital with the rigorous standards of academic publishing." Emphasizes modern history but does include premodern content.

Handbooks and Companions Related to Indian History

Oxford Handbooks Online
Contains in-depth, high-level articles by scholars at the top of their field. BC's subscriptions include archeology, history, political science, religion, and more.
Cambridge Companions Online
Cambridge Companions are a series of authoritative guides, written by leading experts, offering lively, accessible introductions to major writers, artists, philosophers, topics, and periods.

A Concise History of Modern India by Barbara D. Metcalf; Thomas R. Metcalf
Call Number: Cambridge Core Ebooks
ISBN: 9781107672185
Publication Date: 2012
A Concise History of Modern India by Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf, has become a classic in the field since it was first published in 2001.
An Environmental History of India by Michael H. Fisher
Call Number: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107111625
Publication Date: 2018
To understand the region's current and future pressing issues, Michael H. Fisher argues that we must engage with the long and complex history of interactions among its people, land, climate, flora, and fauna.
The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy by David M. Malone; C. Raja Mohan; Srinath Raghavan (eds)
Call Number: Oxford Handbooks Online: Political Science
Publication Date: 2015
Following the end of the Cold War, the economic reforms in the early 1990s, and ensuing impressive growth rates, India has emerged as a leading voice in global affairs, particularly on international economic issues.
Routledge Handbook of Contemporary India by Knut A. Jacobsen (ed)
Call Number: Taylor & Francis eBooks
Publication Date: 2015
This Handbook contains chapters by the field's foremost scholars dealing with fundamental issues in India's current cultural and social transformation and concentrates on India as it emerged after the economic reforms and the new economic policy of the 1980s and 1990s and as it develops in the twenty-first century.

Handbooks and Companions related to Indian Ocean History

The blue economy handbook of the Indian ocean region by Vishva Nath Attri (ed)
Call Number: JSTOR
Publication Date: 2018
Provides fresh insights into the various aspects and impacts of the Blue Economy in the Indian Ocean Region: from shifting paradigms, to an accounting framework, gender dynamics, the law of the sea and renewable energy, this handbook aims at increasing awareness of the Blue Economy in the Indian Ocean Region and to provide evidence to policy-makers in the region to make informed decisions.
The Oxford Handbook of the Law of the Sea by Donald R. Rothwell; Alex G. Oude Elferink (Editor); Karen N. Scott; Tim Stephens (eds)
Call Number: Oxford Handbooks Online: Law
Publication Date: 2015
Recent maritime disputes, environmental disasters, and piracy have raised the profile of the law of the sea. This handbook brings together high-level analysis of all of its key aspects, examining the role of particular regions in the development of the law of the sea, management of the oceans' resources, and critical contemporary debates.

Find Historical Overviews

A Concise History of Modern India by Barbara D. Metcalf; Thomas R. Metcalf
Call Number: Cambridge Core
Publication Date: 2012 (3rd ed.)
As a fresh interpretation of Indian history from the Mughals to the present, it has informed students across the world. In the third edition of the book, a final chapter charts the dramatic developments of the last twenty years, from 1990 through the Congress electoral victory of 2009, to the rise of the Indian high-tech industry in a country still troubled by poverty and political unrest. The narrative focuses on the fundamentally political theme of the imaginative and institutional structures that have successively sustained and transformed India, first under British colonial rule and then, after 1947, as an independent country. Woven into the larger political narrative is an account of India's social and economic development and its rich cultural life.

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Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies

Asian History

Indian History

Reference Shelf

What's on This Page

Find Definitions

India Specific

Language

Find Scholarly Sources

Bibliographies

Catalogs

Find Background Information

Handbooks and Companions Related to Indian History

Handbooks and Companions related to Indian Ocean History

Find Historical Overviews