T.C.A. Raghavan

History Men: Jadunath Sarkar, G.S. Sardesai, Raghubir Sinh and Their Quest for India's Past T.C.A. Raghavan

History Men is the story of the intersecting lives of three deeply committed historians: Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870-1958), who was an expert on the Mughal period; G. S. Sardesai (1865-1959), whose works were on the Marathas; and Raghubir Sinh (1908-1991), who studied the Rajputs. How the three became close friends and joint workers; how they wrote about the great confrontations between the Mughals, Rajputs and Marathas; how their long association exposed continuing conflicts of interpretation and explanation; and how, together, they illuminated a historical moment make for a story worth telling. A narrative built from original research based on the correspondence and the published and unpublished writings of the three scholars, this is also a portrait of rich friendships, of the minutiae of the lives of these historians, and their fierce commitment to historical research as they addressed the significant questions of the age they lived in. Anyone who is interested in the making of historical narratives will find History Men a compelling read.