This volume contains wide-ranging surveys of various aspects of the history of Awadh from its position as a province of the Mughal Empire to a successor state, a semi-colony under the Nawabi regime, the British annexation and the resistance in 1857. The study explores the manner of Mughal administration, the emergence of the class of t'alluqdars, the Company's constant pressure on the Nawabi regime, the cultural and agrarian milieu of a religious establishment, the law of succession and inheritance at a sufi-khanqah, the biography of a the famous scholarly rebel of 1857, Maulavi Ahmadullah Shah, the indigenous discourse in the rebel's world, coexistence and conflicts in pre-1857 Awadh and finally, the study closes with a discussion on education and a sufi establishment of northern India with an analysis of impact of the colonial interventions. The work brings home to the reader not only the different facets of the historical personality of Awadh, but also the different types of source material available for such a study. The book forms an important complement (and corrective) to much of current historical writing of Awadh.
