Contents: 1. Settlement patterns in early history: queries and evidence/Nupur Dasgupta. 2. The trend of urbanization and evolution of towns and cities in Ancient India from Post-Harappan Period to the reign of the Guptas/G.P. Singh. 3. Tirupati -- a study of the urbanization of the Pilgrim centre/P. Raghunadha Rao. 4. Urbanization in India through the ages: municipal administration of Pataliputra in the Maurya Period/Sudhansu De. 5. Urbanization in ancient Bengal/Rangan Kanti Jana. 6. Crafts and capital in Medieval India (c. 1200-1750): A study in Indian historiography/Syed Ejaz Hussain. 7. Trends in urbanization: economy, constituents and typology/Reena Bhaduri. 8. Factors behind urbanization in Lucknow under the Nawabs of Awadh (1722-1819)/Hamid Afaq Qureshi. 9. Urbanization and urbanism in Medieval Bengal/Soumitra Sreemani. 10. Murshidabad's Darbari Culture and the Incipient Nawabi of Bengal/Ishani Ghosh. 11. Aspects of urbanization in three colonial metropolises/Atul Chandra Pradhan. 12. Universal urbanity in rural context: Rabindranath Tagore's ideas of social action and the Sriniketan experiment of rural reconstruction/Uma Dasgupta. 13. Urbanization in interior Bengal: growth of Bolpur and other towns of Birbhum/Manas Kumar Santra. 14. Urbanization and the transformation of the tribal culture -- a case study among the Santhals of Asansol Municipal Corporation/Sandip Kumar Ghatak. 15. Emergence and some characteristics of the towns of Darjeeling Hills/Karubaki Datta. 16. The medical scenario in Colonial Calcutta/Chittabrata Palit. 17. The growth of Kolkata: social dislocations in the early colonial era/Atis Dasgupta. 18. Role of urban labour in Modern Bengal/Nirban Basu. 19. Class character of urban leadership in Modern Bengal/Basabi Bagchi. 20. Partition, migration and the process of urbanization in West Bengal 1947-1971/Tridibsantapa Kundu. 21. The metropolitan woman: a study of the feminine in the urban context: Calcutta 17th-19th century/Uttara Chakraborty. 22. Print culture and Colonial Bengal/Sirshendu Majumdar. 23. Twentieth Century Bengali Poetry: a protest against urbanism/Kuntal Rudra.
"In the papers presented in this book, all the factors about urbanization are truly exemplified. It has three clear sections, ancient, medieval and modern. The story of urbanization starts from the proto-historical period to the Maurya Period in the section on ancient India. The process of urbanization in the medieval period is studied between 1200 and 1750 with reference to Bengal, Awadh and Murshidabad. The modern period has been studied with reference to the three colonial metropolises. Regional urbanization has also been a factor to reckon with, thus Bolpur, Asansol and Darjeeling figure prominently in the volume. Calcutta remains the focal point of such discussion in the modern period. The political, economic, social, cultural and even medical and feminist themes have been tackled in this volume. Political problems like partition and migration, economic problem of industrial labour, the social problem of urban leadership and culture aspect of print cultural and poetry of protest are viewed as products of urbanization. The problem of public health has been discussed in the medical scenario of Colonial Calcutta and the metropolitan women in Calcutta between 17 and 19 centuries receive special attention in two of the essays."
