This book is a comprehensive study of historical sociology and its development, especially in the Indian context. It looks at the works of Indian sociologists and analyses their approaches in terms of book-view (normative) and field-view (descriptive) history. The volume:

* critically appraises reports of empirical surveys conducted during early colonial rule -- including those by H. T. Colebrooke, Francis Buchanan, William Adam;

* engages with the works of sociologists such as M. N. Srinivas, Ramkrishna Mukherjee, Louis Dumont, Nicholas Dirks, Bernard Cohn, Yogendra Singh, D. N. Dhanagare, A. M Shah, T. K. Oommen, among others; and

* shows how historical perspective has been adopted in understanding aspects of Indian society -- villages, castes, traditions, socio-cultural change, education, peasants and their movements, etc.

Presenting an alternative idea of social reality, this book will deeply interest students and scholars of sociology, social theory, and social history.