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Audrey Truschke

Autor de Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth

6 Obras 123 Miembros 4 Reseñas

Sobre El Autor

Audrey Truschke is associate professor of history at Rutgers University-Newark. She is the author of Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court (Columbia, 2016) and Aurangzeh: Hie Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King (2017).

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Biografía breve
Audrey Truschke is assistant professor of South Asian history at Rutgers University–Newark and a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University. She writes about cultural and intellectual history, the relationship between empire and literature, and cross-cultural interactions in early modern South Asia.
http://rutgers.academia.edu/AudreyTru...

Audrey Truschke’s work concerns literary and historical interactions between members of the Sanskrit and Persian traditions in Mughal India. Her first book, Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court (Columbia University Press, 2016, link) investigates the literary, social, and political history of Sanskrit as it thrived in the Mughal courts from 1560 to 1650. Culture of Encounters makes substantial contributions to scholarship on the Mughal Empire, early modern India, and Sanskrit and Persian literary cultures. The book also engages in wider debates concerning cross-cultural exchanges, the interplay between literary, political, and religious spheres, and the construction of power in early modernity.

In addition to her research, she also maintains a website that seeks to promote online resources in the study of early modern South Asia.

Audrey received her PhD from Columbia University in May 2012. During the 2012-2013 academic year, she was a research fellow in History and Asian & Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge (Gonville and Caius College). She is a 2013-2016 Mellon postdoctoral fellow in Religious Studies at Stanford.
http://religiousstudies.stanford.edu/...

Miembros

Reseñas

When history is weaponized for one's own politics and convenience, we need a dose of a reality check to know what is myth and truth. This book does that exactly.

I was worried if this would be an academic drag kind of read. To my surprise, this is a very readable book, crisp and clear in its intent. As a reader of Charu Nivedita's recent marvelous novel, Naan Thaan Aurangzeb, I found many things repetitive. But still, this book is a really good entry point for anyone interested in the life, stories, and mythology around Aurangzeb.… (más)
 
Denunciada
Santhosh_Guru | 3 reseñas más. | Oct 19, 2023 |
A well-written, fast-paced, and mercifully brief account of the least liked of the Great Mughals. The author sets right many misconceptions and prejudices about this longest-lived of the Mughal dynasty. She contends that Aurangzeb was not any more bigoted than any of the other Muslim rulers in medieval India. However, the general judgement that he spent a whole lifetime in a futile effort to conquer the whole sub-continent, seems to be confirmed. The author's judgement that Aurangzeb's poor reputation where it concerns Muslim-Hindu relations, is due to misrepresentations and selective translations by colonial British persons, may be too facile. Ascribing all of his foibles (especially his staying in the south for decades to vanquish what were fellow Muslim-ruled states) to the weight of his Mughal inheritances, and to the times, absolves him completely of any defects in his strategic thinking or any myopia in his vision ir narrowness in his philosophy. The story of Aurangzeb, if not this particular account, should serve as a warning to India's current politicians and leaders of the dangers in creating a too ideologically narrow or a too over-powering state structure.… (más)
½
 
Denunciada
Dilip-Kumar | 3 reseñas más. | Aug 2, 2021 |
This is an interesting book. It's short and that makes it accessible to most readers. This is especially so, given Audrey's easy writing style.

The book does indeed do much to dispel many myths about Aurangzeb, and does indeed share a more balanced perspective of him. He had flaws, as do we. However, bigotry was not as much of a flaw, as his commitment to a long and wasteful war against the Marathas. It is this war that finally undermined the Mughal Empire, given that there was no stable successor after him.

However, history is a strange thing: when viewed from the distance of decades or centuries, distorted perceptions become reality.

One of the flaws of the book, is that Audrey does not dwell enough on Aurangzeb's flaws. She could have presented a more balanced picture of him had she done so

Nevertheless, it is an extremely good book. Many people should read it
… (más)
 
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RajivC | 3 reseñas más. | Jul 21, 2019 |
This is actually a very short work that provides a sweeping overview of some prominent aspects of Aurangzeb (Badshah Alamgir) of Hindustan. But then again the author's aim apparently is not to provide a comprehensive biography, but to provide a counter to the dominant imperial and nationalistic narratives that paint him as a religious zealot, a convenient demon for the vested interests of British colonialism and now Hindu nationalism. But as often is the case, Auragzeb and his reign are a lot more complex than his modern simplistic portraits and the author does a good job of showing it.… (más)
 
Denunciada
kasyapa | 3 reseñas más. | Oct 9, 2017 |

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Estadísticas

Obras
6
Miembros
123
Popularidad
#162,201
Valoración
3.8
Reseñas
4
ISBNs
16

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