Studies in History and History of Science

Arts and science have played a vital role in development of intellectual traditions in human history. The subject matter of this book 'Studies in History and History of Science' has been chosen to unfold various facts of early Indian culture, history as well as history of Science.

The present volume is a mosaic of twenty articles, a witness to the emergence of different schools of historiography who debate about bracketing science and technology together about internal history (of viewing the scientific community as a society in itself) and external history (study of science in society at large) or even about whether sciences and not science in general merit their own history with regional variations. Some of articles discuss science as one of mankind's greatest achievements. Some discuss as the most important productive force of society. However, Studies in History and History of Science is a yet a young discipline and the volume will have served its purpose if it is able to create some measure of enthusiasm in the field of study and foster greater collaboration between scholars.

A master of arts in Sanskrit with special paper on Epigraphy from the University of Burdwan, Dr. Jagatpati Sarkar received his Ph.D from Jadavpur University, Kolkata in 2000. He has also specialized in Library and Information Science from the Rabindrabharati University, Kolkata. Dr. Sarkar joined the Sanskrita Sahitya Parishad Library in the year 1981 and from 1985 he has been serving the Asiatic Society, Kolkata. He has contributed a good number of papers in the leading journals published in India and has edited few books on Manuscriptology. He acted as Co-ordinator of the Asiatic Society Manuscript Resource centre under the aieges of National Mission for Manuscripts, New Delhi. At present Dr. Sarkar is associated with the Rabindrabharati University as Guest Professor in the Department of Library and Information Science.

It is said that all knowledge is history. This is obviously true as any knowledge that we produce belongs to the past. Moreover, knowledge of the past is essential to the society and without it we will lose our identity. It goes without saying that a single book can't give a cogent account of history of any period in the past. Dr Jagatpati Sarkar has not attempted to do it in his book. This book is, in fact, a collection of articles that he wrote on different aspects of history and historiography written over a period of time. A look at the list of contents will show the range of subjects Dr Sarkar wrote about.

At first glance the topics would seem to be a collection of disjoint sets to use a mathematical term. However, what unites them is the Asiatic Society. Sir William Jones founded The Asiatic Society in 1784.

**Contents and Sample Pages**