A01=Romila Thapar
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Author_Romila Thapar
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Product details
- ISBN 9781803096308
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 06 Jul 2026
- Publisher: Seagull Books London Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Historian Romila Thapar reflects on a rich, path-breaking life—and the ideas, friendships, and journeys that shaped her.
In Just Being, historian Romila Thapar invites us into her illustrious world—a rich, extensive memoir from a scholar who has profoundly shaped our understanding of India’s past and present.
From her childhood growing up in British India, through her years of education in London, her extensive travels to archaeological sites across Asia and beyond, and her trailblazing role in shaping the Centre for Historical Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Thapar reflects on a life lived in the service of inquiry and education. Composed over the past few years, Just Being is a testimony to Thapar’s ability to view herself within the larger flow of history, and to illumine it with a scholar’s depth and a storyteller’s sensitivity. It reveals not only an extraordinary, boundary-defying life but a profound conviction that understanding our past in the light of irrefutable evidence is essential to an insight into the present and to shaping a more thoughtful future.
In Just Being, historian Romila Thapar invites us into her illustrious world—a rich, extensive memoir from a scholar who has profoundly shaped our understanding of India’s past and present.
From her childhood growing up in British India, through her years of education in London, her extensive travels to archaeological sites across Asia and beyond, and her trailblazing role in shaping the Centre for Historical Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Thapar reflects on a life lived in the service of inquiry and education. Composed over the past few years, Just Being is a testimony to Thapar’s ability to view herself within the larger flow of history, and to illumine it with a scholar’s depth and a storyteller’s sensitivity. It reveals not only an extraordinary, boundary-defying life but a profound conviction that understanding our past in the light of irrefutable evidence is essential to an insight into the present and to shaping a more thoughtful future.
Romila Thapar is an emeritus professor of history at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and she was previously the general president of the Indian History Congress. She is a fellow of the British Academy and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Calcutta, Oxford University, and the University of Chicago, among others. She is an Honorary Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and SOAS, London. In 2008, she was awarded the prestigious Kluge Prize from the Library of Congress.
