A History of Bangladesh

Willem van Schendel served as Professor of Modern Asian History at the University of Amsterdam.

• List of Plates; List of Maps and Figures; Acknowledgements; Timeline; Preface to second edition; Introduction; Part I. The Long View; 1. A land of water and silt; 2. Jungle, fields, cities and states; 3. A region of multiple frontiers; 4. The delta as a crossroads; Part II. Colonial Encounters; 5. From the Mughal empire to the British empire; 6. British legacies; 7. A closing agrarian frontier; 8. Colonial conflicts; 9. Towards Partition; 10. Partition; 11. Population exchange; Part III. Becoming East Pakistan; 12. The Pakistan experiment; 13. Pakistan falls apart; 14. East Pakistani livelihoods; 15. The roots of aid dependence; 16. A new elite and cultural renewal; Part IV. War and the Birth of Bangladesh; 17. Armed conflict; 18. A state is born; 19. Imagining a new nation; Part V. Independent Bangladesh; 20. Shaping a political system; 21. The triumph of identity politics; 22. Transnational linkages; 23. Boom or bust?; 24. Gender movements; 25. A national culture?; Conclusions; Bangladesh district maps; Key political figures since 1947; Glossary of Bengali terms; Notes; Bibliography; Index