Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300
ISBN:9780520242258 read summary

The book is, no doubt, the best for early indian history. It is a revised and expanded edition of the author's earlier work after a long gap of 35 years, and incorporates all the modern research on early india. The older volume of this work has been a staple for all who wanted to learn anything about ancient india. It has been a required reading in almost all the universities in India. The author is one of the most prominent indian historian and she is an authority on ancient india. Without saying much, it would be sufficient to state that this book is a must for anyone who wants to have a insightful glimpse of ancient indian culture and society. Any reviewer giving less then 5 star does not know much about indian history and historians. And mind you, it is not a 'coffee table' book but a serious read.

If you really want to learn about the history of India, then you'll need to examine the historiography of India, that is, the writing of history. This is where Thapar begins this book, by examining the different schools of thought regarding the history of India.
Some think Indian history can be boiled down to the Hindu vs Muslim angle, or the lost Golden Age angle, or the Victorian or Marxist angle. Thapar does not agree.
She considers how these different perspectives have shaped the current understanding of Indian history, and then dives into the history itself. Along the way she considers and weighs different perspectives.
She isn't limited to the Great Man approach, and does a particularly good job of considering different social layers, as well as the ebb and flow of Hindu/Buddhist/Jaina influence.
Her book is not a fast read, and it's not a rousing adventure story, as many good histories are. This is a thoughtful, considered examination of the history of ancient India. If you want knowledge, look here. If you want an adventure, look elsewhere.

As one that hated History in High School, I found the book to be an excellent review of early India and could not put it down after the first couple of chapters. I was particularly fascinated by the discussion on the evolution of the cast system, touched on virtually throughout the book in varying degree of detail. I now have a much better perspective on the rise and fall of the major kingdoms as well as the invasions that shaped this part of the world. The evolution of society through various stages, e.g. hunter gatherer to urban, is well discussed.

One may find the plethora of italicized terms and names of historical figure a little distracting in the flow of the text, but it still makes for good reading and I heartily recommend it to those not too familiar with early evolution of India.

Prof. Romila Thapar is a well known marxist and communist sympathizer from India. Her works have been biased by her marxist ideology and her communist background. Her works on India cannot be taken seriously at all. If you need to read what the Colonial powers wrote about India 200 years ago, and what has been seen repudiated in modern Indian history, then one should read Ms. Thapar's books.

Having recently finished reading Ms. Thapar's work on Indian History up to AD 1300 (Penguin), I must conclude that it is a very impressive volume. A great deal of research and study must have gone into the creation of such a remarkable opus. I thought it was all-in-all, very respectful of its subject, and especially effective in peeling away centuries of pre- and mis-conceptions imposed by colonial/western commentators. I did not consider the book, in any way, anti-India or anti-Hindu. Anyway, a few points I will make are as follows:
1. Ms. Thapar introduces many remarkable and unusual ideas at the very start of her book (in my opinion, the best part), such as race being a colonial construction. But, she fails to discuss these adequately, and very often allows her thoughts to pass on to oblivion, rather than to a definite conclusion. Maybe, a "definite conclusion" does not exist, at this point-of-time, but a more in-depth approach would have been preferred (even if it added pages to the book).
2. Secondly, the quotes used on the back cover seem to imply, that this book should be primarily taken as rebuttal to farfetched claims made about Indian history, within India today. I don't think this is how this book should be advertised. It is so much more than just that.
3. The material presented deals primarily with the social, and even economic, history of India. There is a great deal to be found on art, literature, science and architecture. But, my impression was off cultural, social and religious history, rather than political history. I understand that kings do not constitute the alpha and omega of history, but Ms. Thapar barely even mentions kings of influence, such as Kanishka, or even travelers and chroniclers, such as Fa-Hein, in any detail.
4. Along that same line, I do not see why it is advertised to be the history of India up to AD 1300. The political history of the thirteenth century is dealt with in maybe 2 lines, if that. I will be very, very curious to see how Ms. Thapar will start volume 2, using a base as inadequate as this!
5. My greatest reservation about Ms. Thapar's work has to do with her presentation of Sanskrit/Hindi words using the Latin alphabet. She follows the colonial tradition of ending almost all the words with the ritual "a". This may be to account for every consonant in Hindi (vyanjan) having a vowel (svar) attached to it. But, she could have made better use of pronunciation aids such as a line overhead to indicate the drawn-out "aa" sound. Some examples were just absurd, such as "pida" for "pidha"/pain. English is not a very phonetic language at all. However, it appears that Ms. Thapar wishes to inhabit the aural world of the colonialists from about 150-200 years ago, but she must realize that by doing so, she is only selling short her otherwise magnificent work.
6. I should also point out that this book is not as beautiful a read as say, Prof. Basham's wonderful "The Wonder That Was India", or the collection of his 7 lectures, compiled into "The Origin and Development of Classical Hinduism". I will still recommend these books, unreservedly, to anyone with an interest in Indian history or culture. But, Ms. Thapar's book deserves to be read carefully as well.