Unsettling the Past: Unknown Aspects and Scholarly Assessments of D.D. Kosambi

Of virtually no modern historian other than D.D. Kosambi (1907 1966) can it be said: He changed the way in which Indian history was conceptualized and written. In fact, the term Renaissance man springs to mind because Kosambi s intellectual contributions cross disciplinary boundaries, ranging from ancient history to mathematics to Sanskrit literature to numismatics to India s energy policy.

This book contains relatively unknown writings by Kosambi, including several obscure but important essays and an unpublished children s story. Also made available here for the first time are some wonderful letters that Kosambi wrote to, among others, the scientist Homi Bhabha and the writer-historian Robert Graves. These reveal Kosambi s mastery of the epistolary art.

Other sections contain tributes to Kosambi by his friends, and essays by major contemporary scholars on his contributions in diverse fields. The volume gives a new and well-rounded picture of Kosambi s writings, as well as mature assessments of his scholarship by some of the best minds of our time.