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We turn 25 today
On All Fools' Day in 2000, we started a publishing house. We named it Permanent Black. We began Permanent Black with small savings and...
Apr 11 min read
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The Annual Prizes from Permanent Black
This year's winners have been announced! Dharmanand Kosambi Memorial Book Prize: Rubab Ali Punjabi, Susan Philip, Uma Tara Bakshi Simon...
May 30, 20242 min read
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TWO INFOSYS PRIZE WINNERS!
We are delighted and proud that the just-announced Infosys Prize has been awarded to two scholars whom we published years before the...
Nov 17, 20232 min read
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Ranajit Guha (1923 - 2023)
For Ranajit Guha's ninetieth birthday, Permanent Black had asked "a few scholars and friends of Ranajit Guha to contribute a short piece...
Apr 30, 20234 min read
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Come to the World Book Fair 2023!
This year's World Book Fair is special for us as it coincides with the 75th anniversary of Orient Blackswan publishers (formerly...
Feb 23, 20231 min read
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Translating Sanjay Subrahmanyam
A measure of the international stature of historians is the prestige of the university or institutional campus that employs them and the...
Jan 21, 202310 min read
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"Ashoka was not faceless" Nayanjot Lahiri
The historian spoke to Abhishek Roy about her new book. Nayanjot Lahiri’s first effort at narrative history, Finding Forgotten Cities ...
Dec 21, 202216 min read
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Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya
We had sad news yesterday, about the passing of Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya. Searching around for a picture of him we realised he had not...
Jul 14, 20221 min read
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The annual prizes from Permanent Black
When Permanent Black turned twenty, we instituted the Kosambi Memorial Book Prize to be given annually to the best student in Ancient...
Jun 27, 20222 min read
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Studying in Strange Times
We have all had odd experiences lately. Odd in the sense that they could not have been imagined before 2020. The pandemic in which we...
Jun 27, 20223 min read
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The Inconveniences of History
If I were asked to put it into words, I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint a major way in which studying History as a part of my Undergraduate...
Jun 27, 20223 min read
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Where is history?
Growing up, I was fortunate to be surrounded by people who enjoyed creative pursuits and engaging in the social sciences. It certainly...
Jun 27, 20223 min read
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A.R. Venkatachalapathy chosen for Lifetime Achievement Award
Historian and professor of the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS), A.R. Venkatachalapathy, has been selected for the...
May 25, 20222 min read
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Citizen Kaun?
Niraja Gopal Jayal speaks to Madhav Khosla about her book, Citizenship and its Discontents Q1. It is sometimes felt that a strictly legal...
Jan 26, 20226 min read
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"An exciting time to be doing philosophy" Akeel Bilgrami speaks to Uday Singh Mehta
To mark the publication of Akeel Bilgrami’s Secularism, Identity, and Enchantment, we requested the political theorist Uday Singh Mehta...
Jan 25, 20229 min read
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The religion of Gandhi: A Conversation about Satyagraha: Ajay Skaria talks with Omair Ahmad
It is rare to speak of “religion” in the political domain these days, and you mention your own difficulties in breaking out of the...
Jan 24, 202229 min read
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The Unfamiliarity of the Past
Joya Chatterji's most recent book is PARTITION’S LEGACIES . It was published by Permanent Black in June 2019. In this wide-ranging...
Jan 23, 202232 min read
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Love and Laughter in Lockdown
ARITRA GHOSH, winner of the Kosambi Memorial Book Prize 2021, awarded every year by Permanent Black, gives us a student's guide to...
Jan 20, 20223 min read
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Neeladri Bhattacharya in conversation about his book
Neeladri Bhattacharya’s monograph, The Great Agrarian Conquest: The Colonial Reshaping of a Rural World (Ranikhet: Permanent Black,...
Jan 19, 202215 min read
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"Every nationality has its own distinct stench": by G. Kanato Chophy
Wonderfully written and deeply moving new book on society and history in Nagaland over the past couple of centuries has just been...
Jan 18, 20229 min read
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