Elite Conflict in a Plural Society: Twentieth-Century Bengal – J.H. Broomfield

First published in 1968, J.H. Broomfield’s Elite Conflict in a Plural Society: Twentieth Century Bengal is a classic of Indian historiography. At the time of its publication its theoretical formulations and empirical findings, its methodologies and ideological underpinnings were widely discussed and hotly debated in Calcutta’s historical circles as well as within the international South Asian studies community across the world. The late 1960s saw the beginning of several new trends in the writing of modern Indian history and Elite Conflict represented many of those new trends of research. It signified that South Asian history had come of age by going past the simple data gathering phase into the “sophisticated use of analytical devices for the ordering of data and the explication of patterns.” This fiftieth anniversary edition comes with a new introduction by noted historian Sekhar Bandyopadhyay.