The Long March of Progress: A Historical and Personal Account

Product Description It is a historical narrative of human progress, in which the author has included his own experience on three continents. The first part of this book focuses on the emergence of the ‘Modern Age’ in the West. In the second part, the author describes the arrival of Muslim invaders, Arabs, Afghans and Turks, their conquest and long rule in India to provide a contextual background for the evolution of an Indo-Muslim culture. The third part includes a description of the conditions of India in the eighteenth century, including the disintegration of Mughal Empire and the contest for power and territory among the native regional groups (Afghans, Marathas, Sikhs, and Jats) along with the European trading companies. It was during this period that two of the author’s ancestors migrated from the Roh (hills in the north-west) to the Gangetic plain: Rohila settlements in the Gangetic plain were the foundation for his family’s march of progress. The fourth part comprises an account of the arrival of Europeans in India, rising power of the East India Company, consolidation of the British Raj, and the events leading to the partition and independence of India in 1947. It was during the British rule that the ideas of progress imported from the West were grafted on to a very diverse cultural and social landscape of India. Paradoxically the British imperial rule laid the foundation for modernity in India. In the final part of the book, the author writes about his family’s three migrations, the first two of his ancestors on the sub-continent and the last his own to Canada via the Netherlands. The narrative ends with optimism about the future, given the experience of progress so far and the great potential that humans possess. About the Author Mahmood Hasan Khan has been studying the human condition for over 50 years. His education, nurtured first in Pakistan and then in the Netherlands, equipped him to explore the conditions of rural poverty in diverse social and economic milieu. The author's choice of an academic career at an early stage in life facilitated his professional growth through university teaching and research. Mahmood Hasan Khan retired in 2002 as Professor of Economics at Simon Fraser University (Canada), after working there for 37 years. He has published 13 books-of which he authored eight and co-authored or co-edited the rest-and 33 articles in professional journals. He has also served as a consultant to the FAO, ILO, IMF, UNDP, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, the aid-agencies of Canada and the United States, and some non-governmental organisations working in rural Pakistan. Much of this work involved field research and has been published. In the last five years, Mahmood Hasan Khan focused his attention on the history of human progress and reflected on his own long march of progress. This book is the outcome of his understanding and interpretation of progress at the societal and personal levels.