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The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States. By F. R. ALLCHIN with GEORGE ERDOSY, R. A. E. CONINGHAM, D. K. CHAKRABARTI, and BRIDGET ALLCHIN. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. xviii, 371 pp. $74.95 (cloth); $29.95 (paper).
The publication of this comprehensive review of the Early Historic period in South Asia (ca. 2000 B.c. to A.D. 320) by one of the West's foremost authorities together with his colleague/wife and students has been long anticipated. The result of nearly a decade of research and writing (up to 1993), the book is a worthy supplement to and in part supplants such classics as Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi's An Introduction to the Study of Indian History (Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1956) and his Ancient India: a History of its Culture and Civilization (New York: Pantheon Books, 1965) as well as Arthur Llewellyn Basham's The Wonder That Was India (3rd ed., London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1967). If augmented by additional readings and clarifying lectures, The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia is a suitable text for a university course. For the professional, the volume is a welcome overview and reasonably balanced discussion of many important issues in South Asian...