Author: D P Chattopadhyaya
Editor(s): S Ramakrishnan
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
Year: 2001
Language: English
Pages: 311
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8172762208

Description

This book, as its very title indicates, is essentially concerned with various aspects of Societies, Cultures and Ideologies. True to the subtitle of the book, the author offers analyses and interpretations of the basic social institutions, processes, their changing forms of interaction and the resulting values with special reference to India. In the themes covered in this book, disciplines like Philosophy, History, Ethnography and Ethics are perspectively interwoven. In his exposition the author goes deep into the ideas of many influential Indian and Western thinkers of different ages-ancient, medieval and modern.

This book provides a definitive re-statement of Chattopadhyayas research and thought for the last forty-five years. This book will be interest to social scientists, historians, philosophers and the general reader.

Contents

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

NEW AGE

Raja Rammohan Roy – A New Appraisal
The Communist Manifesto: Before and After
Marx on Alienation and Freedom
Marx and Sri Aurobindo on the Stages of History, the State and the Stateless Society of Future

RENEWED OLD QUESTIONS

The Ideal of Human Unity and Vivekananda
Must Ethics be based on Religion?
How can History be Objective?
Democracy and Ideology

HERITAGE EXTENDED

Moral Challenges of Gandhian Ideology
Gandhi on Freedom and its Different Facets
Gandhi on the Paradox of Violence
Buddha to Gandhi

A CRITIQUE OF CULTURE

Identity, Integrity and Cultural Confusion
Schism in the Colonized Soul: A Critical View of Indias Transition from Raj to Swaraj
Utility and Culture
We and They in Indian Culture