Author Description

"After seventy-five years of independence, the history of Pakistan remains centred on the state, its ideology and the two-nation theory. This book seeks to shift that focus away from histories of an imagined nation to the history of its peoples. Based on the premise that the historiographical tradition in Pakistan has ignored the existence of people who actually make history, this book brings together historians, anthropologists, sociologists and political scientists to shed light on the diverse histories of the people themselves. Assembling histories of events and peoples missing from grand narratives of national history, the essays in this collection incorporate a diversity of ideas, images and genres of writing. Offering a close reading of alternative forms of representation such as art, film, poetry and fiction, this volume highlights and recuperates the entangled nature of history and memory within Pakistan's social and cultural life. By critically examining both leftist and nationalist thought, Towards People's Histories in Pakistan explores competing visions of what is meant by 'the people' and charts new ground in developing the promise of people's histories both within Pakistan and beyond."--