History for mains has not only Indian history but also world history. Basic timeline, facts etc are good for prelims, but mains needs thematic study of history. It requires zooming in on turning points and zooming out to look at progression of movements/events etc. This is what makes it challenging.
Largely, we study art and culture part only for ancient and medieval part. Modern India is studied in detail. World history is also to be studied in fast forward(so many centuries to cover, with so many names, details, concepts). It is very difficult, but if one looks at it like a story, it is indeed interesting. I am not preaching, but I do feel that history can get boring only if perspective is lost. If one tries to live those times, live those obstacles people faced in those times, then it makes sense as to why certain things happened. This helps us come to terms with our own deeds, take lessons from past, and to understand that it is easier to judge in retrospect.
For art and culture of ancient and medieval times, there is of course ncert, old and new, with pictures, tables, point wise description. To revise and to fill in details, there is ccrtindia website.
For modern India, struggle for independence by Bipin Chandra is good, but for mains it has to be studied thematically. Besides, if one goes thru NCERT by Bipin Chandra, it is better(mains point of view). So, I had made notes for mains based on this book and I want to share it to save people the pain of going thru the whole book. Also, Ive made it in point format, leaving out excess detail, so that one can go thru it quickly and get ready to put down at least some basic points on paper.
Link: modern India ncert hand written notes for mains
[its a heavy file, so those with slow connections, careful... 57 pages 24MB]
There are many other books one can read to get more analysis and details for modern India. There is spectrum, Grover Mehta, Plassey to partition, Sumit Sarkar etc. But I found that I used to bite too much, and could not chew, let alone digest these texts. So, I decided to stick to the old ncert by Bipin Chandra and added some notes from above books, so as to cover some missing portions and I was done with subject. I have left some portions blank in above file, due to lack of time to cover those portions. This won;t affect the overall coverage of notes, and one can read up on those(2) sections separately from any source.
For world history there are many books again.. BV Rao, Jain, Norman Lowe, Arjun Dev, Baliyan notes etc. All of the above are alright. But many of these take up too many words to explain same thing, which caused lot of pain to remember. Some dont cover from Renaissance, some do but then go too deep. So, I found that there is an NCERT Contemporary world history class XII 2003 edition that is spot on for the mains world history syllabus. It covers all relevant timeframes, is written in simple language, with less of extra ramblings.
Largely, we study art and culture part only for ancient and medieval part. Modern India is studied in detail. World history is also to be studied in fast forward(so many centuries to cover, with so many names, details, concepts). It is very difficult, but if one looks at it like a story, it is indeed interesting. I am not preaching, but I do feel that history can get boring only if perspective is lost. If one tries to live those times, live those obstacles people faced in those times, then it makes sense as to why certain things happened. This helps us come to terms with our own deeds, take lessons from past, and to understand that it is easier to judge in retrospect.
For art and culture of ancient and medieval times, there is of course ncert, old and new, with pictures, tables, point wise description. To revise and to fill in details, there is ccrtindia website.
For modern India, struggle for independence by Bipin Chandra is good, but for mains it has to be studied thematically. Besides, if one goes thru NCERT by Bipin Chandra, it is better(mains point of view). So, I had made notes for mains based on this book and I want to share it to save people the pain of going thru the whole book. Also, Ive made it in point format, leaving out excess detail, so that one can go thru it quickly and get ready to put down at least some basic points on paper.
Link: modern India ncert hand written notes for mains
[its a heavy file, so those with slow connections, careful... 57 pages 24MB]
There are many other books one can read to get more analysis and details for modern India. There is spectrum, Grover Mehta, Plassey to partition, Sumit Sarkar etc. But I found that I used to bite too much, and could not chew, let alone digest these texts. So, I decided to stick to the old ncert by Bipin Chandra and added some notes from above books, so as to cover some missing portions and I was done with subject. I have left some portions blank in above file, due to lack of time to cover those portions. This won;t affect the overall coverage of notes, and one can read up on those(2) sections separately from any source.
For world history there are many books again.. BV Rao, Jain, Norman Lowe, Arjun Dev, Baliyan notes etc. All of the above are alright. But many of these take up too many words to explain same thing, which caused lot of pain to remember. Some dont cover from Renaissance, some do but then go too deep. So, I found that there is an NCERT Contemporary world history class XII 2003 edition that is spot on for the mains world history syllabus. It covers all relevant timeframes, is written in simple language, with less of extra ramblings.
Thank you so much jitesh,
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